Mother's Day Tea and Gymnastics!

 I had a really nice Mother's Day on Sunday. But the best part of Mother's Day was actually on Thursday when I went to Annika's school for the Mother's Day tea. The reason it was so great is because Annika was sooooo excited for it. She was trying to keep everything a secret and was counting down the days, so her enthusiasm was very contagious. Each of the five grade 1 classes put on a little performance in the chapel, and her class did a play. Annika was assigned the part of "Girl", which meant that she had lots of lines to memorize. When she first brought the script home, she didn't think she could do it. But Mike worked on it with her all weekend, and by the time she returned to school, she pretty much had her lines AND all the other lines of the play memorized. She found it a bit frustrating that by Thursday, other kids (including "Boy" who is standing to her left) still needed their papers. And ended up using them for the play. Not Annika, though- she executed her part flawlessly.:)

 After the performances, the moms were escorted to their child's classrooms for some cookies and juice. 

Annika and her Grade 1 teacher

 Annika showed me her journal, and it was so fun to flip through it and see what she has worked on this year. I really liked these two entries. I think the beach one might actually be referring to last year, and she would have written it more at the beginning of the year. In the one about Leila, she told me that she drew Leila the way that Leila draws herself. 

 The girls have started taking gymnastics. Our clubhouse (like most clubhouses) offers lots of different classes. Even ones for adults such as cake-decorating and singing. The only thing is that they are typically in Cantonese, so I inquired about gymnastics and was told that it *probably* wouldn't be in English. I pressed the guy further (like is it? Or isn't it?), so he phoned up the instructor and got off the phone and told me "Good news! The instructor says that there are children from other countries in the class, so it is in English and Cantonese". Well, great! Sign us up!

 These are the "children from other countries" that the instructor must have been referring to. Funny how they do stick together! Annika and the older sister of this pair have hit it off and it turns out their school buses arrive at the same time, so they've been able to chat it up after school as we walk home together.

 So far, Leila only lasts for the beginning of the class and then runs to sit on our laps for the rest of it. I'm not sure what her problem is, but I'm hoping she'll participate soon, or I'm going to pull her out of the class. Annika, on the other hand, is having a blast! I think Leila would too if she'd give it a chance. Oh well... 

 She got to be demonstrator for each of the stations, which was pretty exciting. I am pleased that this instructor is very encouraging of all the kids- whether they are successful or not, he gives lots of praise and high 5's. There's always such an emphasis here on "results" and "performance" that extracurriculars aren't always very fun. But so far (for Annika), gymnastics is great fun, and we've already noticed that we recognize more kids in our complex, so that's another perk that we hadn't even considered!

Such balance!