ten minutes to myself

those kids that I write about sometimes are still around

There is something sort of backwards about parent-teacher conferences here; I had a twenty-minute chat with my three year-olds preschool teacher (memorable comment: "Sadie applies yellow to all colours indiscriminately") yet had a mere ten minutes to cover four months of progress with Madeline's second grade teacher. 

Regardless of the brevity of the latter conference, everyone is doing fairly well. Even if I don't like how much of an informational black box Madeline's school is, she's happy to participate and her teacher has really been encouraging her reading skills. Madeline's entire grade - so, about 115 students - put on a play last week; Neverland had an astoundingly large population of pirates and Lost Boys, but Madeline sang and danced and spoke her one line in the play with enthusiasm.

Sadie is moving up from the Caterpillar Room to the Butterfly Room. Her preschool supports the multi-age classroom concept, and I think that she's the oldest kid in her current class. I am a little sad that she won't be finishing off the year with her current teacher and friends, but I also think that it will be nice that she'll be familiar with the new room and teacher before the summer break. In theory, this should make the transition back to school in August easier, right? 

 

january's theme: too busy to post

Today, at the first toddler playgroup of the year, I was expecting to exchange "Happy New Year"s with the other parents, so the excited "Oh my gosh, I can't believe how fabulous that Villa Market you had in BKK is!" from one of the moms that I am friendly with caught me off-guard. And it was funny to me - I can remember when I was extremely frustrated with grocery shopping in Bangkok and Villa seemed anything but fabulous, but now, having a Villa Market nearby would seriously make my year. I miss being able to buy edamame and sweet potato fries (and frankly, a whole lot of familiar comfort food) for my kids. Grocery shopping in Saigon means that I am confronted with whole aisles of MSG packages and I've been to three different shops looking for whole wheat flour and haven't found it yet. I am very homesick nostalgic for my former life in Thailand these days ... 

Madeline's class wasn't assigned any homework over the break, and she vehemently refused to have anything to do with practicing math, no matter how many times her dad bugged her about it. "I don't have any homework ! I am on a holiday!" she would tell us, sharply. I usually laughed when they were having a row over homework, because she spent so much of the break from school reading - reading signs, websites,  and subtitles (in Toy Story 3, our latest DVD purchase) - and I guess she never thought about the practice that she was getting! (And I can't begin to express how amazed I am that I have a child who can REA !)

I am also amazed, this evening, at what some of my fellow foreigners in Saigon try to get away with. We have a web-community here, "Nguyen's List", if you will, and today there was a post from someone who  would be delighted to sell a second-hand Maclaren Triumph baby stroller for $230 USD, which is plenty more than what they cost brand-new. I am somewhat tempted to post that I am giving away a second-hand Mac Triumph for free, just to stop someone from being taken advantage of. Sigh.

I'd write more but my husband is newly addicted to Angry Birds and playing it right next to me!