I'm bringing home a...

A husband!!! (Did you really think that I would tell all of the fun surprises that I am bringing home?)

Baby bumble bee, won’t my mommy be so proud of me? Buzz, buzz, buzz, oh it bit me!

Baby rattlesnake, won’t my mommy shiver and shake? Rattle, rattle, rattle, oh it bit me!

Baby dinosaur, won’t my mommy fall right through the floor? Gobble, gobble, gobble, oh it ate me!

On Monday in my morning class I taught the kids this version of the song, they seemed to enjoy it and still are requesting to sing the song (which is a good thing as I was starting to get quite tired of the 4 or so songs that they requested every time). we have added lots actions to the song and so it makes it even more fun, the kids especially like to slap the floor and stomp when we talk about mommy falling right through the floor.

Little Alice was back at school on Monday, she didn’t look any wear for worse though she did have some kind of shiny rub stuff on her cuts. Though it was rather interesting, Teacher Jane wouldn’t let her participate in any of the activities, she just sat on her chair behind all the other kids, I don’t know if it the grandparents request, a culture thing, or just Teacher Jane- she didn’t seem to mind but it kind of made me sad to see her missing out on things.

I know that I have much to catch up on, on what has happened in the past couple of days, it is already almost 11 o’clock so some things might be shortened a little bit just for the sake of things but I will try not to do that too much.

I already covered the morning class that we learned the song I’m Bringing Home a Baby Bumble Bee, in my middle class we had our safety/health lesson for the week. We talked about stovetop safety and how we should not grab pans right off the stovetop, of course I had to begin my class with doing in the wrong way, I had the kids decide what we should make for lunch and then pretended to put the ingredients in the pan; next of course we had to put it on the “stove” and mix until the timer went off, the first time I would grab the pan with my bare hand and scream bloody murder. We talked about how it is very hot and that we should not grab the pans, if we have to grab a pan we should use a towel or a mitt (I was really impressed that one of the kids actually said that word and not me). After we had finished talking each of the kids got to take a turn taking a pan off of the “stove.” I was really impressed with the 3 year olds, I had told them that if they could sit and listen to the lesson for so long then they could have the remainder of the time at the end to play, they have been doing really well all week and so we have been kind of using that as a strategy, I just increase a little each day how long they have to pay attention to the lesson, I am quite impressed with them this week (even Annie and Jared are getting a lot better).

This week for our afternoon class we are talking about birthday’s and birthday celebrations, for Monday both Natalie and I decided to keep the lessons pretty simple, we each picked 3-4 party games that we would play in class. When we talked after class we discovered that both classes had gone rather smoothly and the kids seemed to have enjoyed everything, it is really hard sometimes as we plan what we think is the simplest lesson and then everything goes crazy, so we were both really happy to see our lessons go well and smoothly.

Monday when Natalie was done with her tutoring she asked me if I wanted to go somewhere for dinner, I kind of wanted to start working on our piñatas that we were going to be using for our class on Friday (we hadn’t ended up getting started on them over the weekend like I had hoped), but decided that I would go with her. I suggested the night market as I still wanted to get back and get to work and didn’t really feel like wandering out too far. She said that she would be willing to go there if this one place was open that she had tried the other day, so we headed down there. It was open!! Thank goodness because it was amazing, I hadn’t thought about taking my camera because it was just the night market we were going to and I had gone there before. The place that we tried was amazing!! It is like a crepe thing with really good food in it, Natalie got it again tonight and so I took a picture of it, I am going to take my camera next time and do a video of her making it, it was really cool. Of course when you are at the night market you also have to go to the fruit juice stand, I got mango and pineapple with milk, not my favorite that I have ever gotten- but at least I have tried it once. While we were also at the fruit juice stand they had these boxes of fresh cut fruit 3/$100NT, really good Natalie and I each bought 3, by yesterday afternoon Natalie’s were all gone- I still have one more to finish. Oh and also randomly Natalie has met this guy from India at the night market and I guess they own a Indian BBQ place, we are excited to try it sometime- so look forward to reports on that place too!

When we got home Natalie and I went straight to working on our piñatas, they looked pretty interesting, lots of colors. We hung them up outside to dry, but yesterday morning we came outside to find two of them on the ground, I think that the heat might have been too much and popped the balloons, so we now have a couple of very funny shaped piñatas.

Yesterday morning in my class we played the game Simon Says, the kids seemed to enjoy it. I played a very basic version and wasn’t too picky about who should be out, I tried a couple of times but found that it was easier to just laugh and remind them that I needed to say Simon. I would do some pretty funny things and the kids would all do it, making me want to laugh- while we were playing that game was again one of those moments that I wished that someone would follow me around with a camera.

For some reason after my morning class I decided to stay downstairs with the 3 year olds rather than go upstairs, I sat down on the floor across from Meggy and Sam. They were coloring and I started coloring on a flower of Meggy’s, for some reason she ended up having me color much of her picture. It was rathr frustrating though, for some reason Little Erik decided that I was going to be his current mommy or something because he spent more of the time climbing all over me and kept on like crawling into my lap and putting his head on my chest. I was not quite sure what was going on or why he decided to do that, and he wouldn’t stop, so I was more than ready to stand up when it was time for class to start.

In the middle class we talked about rhyming, I first would put one word up and then the kids helped me come up with words that rhymed. Next we read through a little bit of a Dr. Seuss book and searched for the different rhymes that he had used, when we had finished that I read the whole book through to the kids and had them listen for the different rhymes that they could hear, I think that by the time I was reading through the book the kids weren’t really looking for the rhymes but once in awhile I would hear one of the kids yell out the rhyme.

For my afternoon class we were playing the game Pin the Hat on the Clown, first the kids got to decorate their own hats, I hadn’t thought that, that would take so much time but for most of the kids it took a big chunk of the class, so in my first class we didn’t even get to play the game and in the 2^nd class we started and had gotten like 3 people through when they lost the opportunity to play because they were talking too much.

When I was done with class I wanted to run to the grocery store really fast before my tutoring job because I didn’t really want to go when I was done, I was going out the gate when Teacher Stephanie called to me that I had better have food prepared as there was a typhoon coming. She told me that she hadn’t seen any news but look up in the sky and see how red it is (I thought about it later and realized that it made sense as I remember how mom used to say something about red skies in the morning, sailors take warning or something like that, and sailors would definitely want to take warning about a typhoon). I realized that it was a good thing that I was running to the grocery store so that I could get some stuff to be stocked up. (funny story I mentioned later to Natalie about Teacher Stephanie saying a typhoon might be coming and she said that earlier one of her tutor students had noticed the red sky and said “red sky” and she had just agreed with them and had not really gotten their point).

I raced back and got home maybe 20 minutes before my tutoring was supposed to start, I ran downstairs and quickly put my laundry in the washer (as I was wearing my last pair of clean shorts :D) and filled up our water jug thing, while I waited I talked to Teacher Stephanie for a little bit, she showed me a website that will show typhoons and earthquakes, particularly the typhoon predictions.. www.cwb.gov.tw (click on the English at the top right), it is a pretty good site and you can see typhoons all around the earth, while I had some free time I was also looking at the earthquakes list, and we have had a lot more than I had realized. My tutor student came and he was so sweet, he had brought me a box of moon cakes (I was super excited as I really like moon cakes), tutoring was pretty easy- he is very smart and time goes pretty quickly with him.

When we were done with tutoring I prepared my dinner as fast as I could so that I could get out of the kitchen as Natalie had a tutor student only 10 minutes after we were done with the brothers. I grabbed my food and got out, I just did some browsing for the next 20 minutes ( I guess that I could have been working on my journal :D) and then remembered that I had put a load of laundry in and so went downstairs and got it and hung it up. Once she was done with her tutor student we worked on our piñatas again and then I was really tired when we were done, I talked to Kyle for a little bit and read a couple of pages in my book but went to bed pretty early.

This week we have another new 3 year old, this 3 year old is much different than any other new 3 year old that we have had. He came in on Monday, I was walking out of the class when he came in, he basically said good-bye to mom walked in and sat down at a chair. He has caught on so quickly and I have not seen him cry once. I was talking to Teacher Stephanie yesterday about it, I guess they had come and looked at the school a couple of weeks ago and they had also looked at some other schools, when the mom had asked him what school he wanted to go to he told his mom that he wanted to go to the one where all the kids cry (haha that pretty much made me laugh for awhile). Also I guess Monday morning when he came to school he got all of his bedding together himself and then told him mom “I know that you are not ready to go but I am,” and when they got to the school gate he got really excited because it was the right school. That is not normally the reaction of a new 3 year old and so we are all kind of surprised and are not quite sure how to react.

Today in my morning class we wrote stories about the clown Fred (see two posts down), it was fun, it sometimes took some promptings but the kids did pretty good and laughed at a lot of what they wrote.

In my middle class we were supposed to be doing some kind of trust games (because for some reason that is what I decided to do?), I decided to just bring a blindfold and a ball, I would blindfold a person and then the kids were supposed to give directions of how to get wherever the ball was. The 3 year old class we just played a game of where I hid the things and then they would all try and find it, in the 4 year olds class I found out that they do not know their directions very well (I guess that, that would be a hint to me to have that as a topic in class?) and so it was rather interesting. Leslee kept on putting the blindfold on and yelling “it’s dark” I couldn’t seem to get across to her that that was the point of the blindfold. In the 5 year old class it went pretty well, they could give pretty good directions, but they got too excited and didn’t know when to stop and listen to me so they had to stop playing and sit quietly for like the last 5 minutes of class.

I wasn’t sure if I had been too harsh on them and so I talked to Teacher Michelle and Teacher Stephanie about it later, but they told me that what I had done was good, the kids get excited but they know better and need to remember when to stop and listen. Teacher Michelle said that she had asked them later why they had to sit quietly and they all remembered why, so she said that it was a good thing because they won’t do it again because they know what will happen.

This morning Teacher Stephanie was talking to me a little bit about some of her frustrations, she was talking about how because of what she believes she always tries to do extra then is asked of her, but she is now afraid that it might have been a bad thing- Yuling sometimes now expects her to do those things as part of her “job” and she isn’t willing to pay her more for it. I know that this is Yuling’s business but it kind of makes me sad and not understand why Natalie and I get paid the most, more than any of the Chinese teachers, and what makes even less sense to me is that Teacher Michelle (5 year old teacher) gets paid more than Teacher Stephanie and Teacher Jane, I would think that they would get paid more as they work with all the little kids who are still crying a lot and are learning the most. I just don’t understand. Teacher Stephanie I guess maybe thinking about looking for a different job somewhere else, where she has a little less hours (she usually doesn’t leave until after 7pm) and a little more pay, it would be kind of sad to see her leave.

Today in my afternoon class we were talking about birthday cards!! We pretty much decorated our own birthday card with pictures of things that we think go with birthdays, I saw many, many different things (Barbie being one of them :D). The class went pretty well, no big problems, it was even kind of sad- Jared was very quiet and cuddly with the teachers (not like him at all), we figured out that he is probably sick, it is strange to see him so quiet, I almost wish to have the loud Jared back.

I have been spending more and more time downstairs with the kids when school is out if I don’t have tutoring, the kids are really fun to be around and I want them to not just see me in a classroom setting, I am a fun person and can be a “friend” to them too. Anyway today I stayed downstairs after Kristy and I had our 20 minute tutor session. I was mostly playing with Leslee, Wendy, and Zowie. At one point I got tired of running around and being chased and went into the office, of course they followed me and collapsed down on the couch too. I was sitting there and they went and grabbed some paper and markers and started coloring. They all started coping whatever I said, it was pretty funny to hear some of their pronunciations of words, I did English for awhile but then started doing some Spanish words too, it got pretty funny with those pronunciations.

I don’t know if I told the story, but a couple of weeks ago I guess Natalie was having the kids draw pictures in her class and most of the kids were drawing a picture of themselves with their mom or something, anyway Natalie went up to Jimmy and there was a big heart with a girl and a boy in it; she asked him if it was his mommy and he was like no, it’s Leslee and who is the boy? Me. She looked at Leslee’s picture and found the same thing. Anyway to add onto that today when we had walked into the office there was a picture on the table, I guess that Jimmy had drawn it (it had a picture of a girl and a boy) yesterday or something and Leslee had known that because she went straight up to it and picked it up and kissed the boy. I had to keep myself from laughing.

When Wendy and Zowie were gone (their parents had picked them up), Leslee and I were still doing copy cat, I started doing sentences like “mi amigas es…..” and then I decided to do “mi amigo es Jimmy,” I am not sure if Leslee totally understood what I had said but she got this huge look on her face and said “AHHH.” It was quite funny.

For some reason I guess Yuling is still in the hospital and will be there until Saturday, and for some even stranger reason Joseph came over tonight and was just sitting downstairs in the office with Daniel and Alli, well at one point he had a stinky diaper (Daniel that is, not Joseph :D) and he went to pick him up, for some reason I looked over and saw all the kids rushing over to smell Daniels dirty diaper, I would have thought that once would have been enough, oh no they each smelled it like two or three times- not exactly something that I ever thought that I would see.

I had several tutoring jobs tonight, they went pretty well, but Natalie didn’t come home as early as she had said that she would so we didn’t get started on our piñata’s as early either, but luckily I have typed pretty fast tonight and am done!!

I love you all and hope that you have an amazing Wednesday, as mine is ending!

~Betherd~

Oh my goodness I can’t believe that I almost forgot to mention this, so this morning Teacher Stephanie told me not to forget about Saturday, I told her that I wouldn’t- that I had it written down on like 3 different calendars- I don’t think that they realize quite how excited I am about this activity! I will have my batteries fully charged and will probably be there way too early, as I am way excited! Look forward to my post Saturday or Sunday about it. :D

Ok, now I really am ending- Love you!!!