Shanghai Wild Animal Park.... WILD!!!!

Forgive me if I mentioned this, but I was really sneaky and put "Personal Day" on Andy's school calendar last month so that he could take the day off today? Why you ask??? Maddie had her first field trip of the year to the Shanghai Wild Animal Park and the whole family joined her for this wondrous event! It started off with a very Jurassic Park like tour through the various kingdoms in the school bus. It stared off light with looking at the vegetarians, but ended with lions, tigers, and bears... literally! They walked right up to the bus as the children sat there gobsmacked. The seal show was... hilarious is the word I'm looking for here. Maddie was giddy with excitement all day long and crashed hard when we made it home. Coincidentally, Amelia has decided that lemurs are her favorite animal... or perhaps it's the other way around!

Mom and Maddie at the Seal Show

Dad and Maddie break for a snack... apple and peanut butter sandwiches!!

Maddie runs through the Chicago Eagles nest!

Maddie enjoys one of the four pandas at the park...

Maddie and a few lemurs have a conversation about snacks...

Parents of the Year or just cute??
"Hmmm... what's in here?"


Not quite Sea World, but....

Maddie's First Thanksgiving of the Year

Maddie has been looking forward to her class party all week long. It ends up that the kids made a place mat and each was laminated for the shindig. Since I started back to work this week, I wasn't able to go in a help the other moms (and some dads) help set up and I knew that it would be a slight shock for Maddie. However, I promised her that I would come to the party for 10 minutes at least and so I did! My kids were in the midst of learning about rate of change and I gave them a task that had to be completed in 15 minutes, told my colleagues I was leaving, grabbed Andy in his office, and we zipped to the party.

The room was bustling with activity and we saw Maddie sitting at the end of the table a bit long faced, but when we both walked through the door she simply BEAMED from ear to ear! She was so proud to show off the things she had made for the party and was more than willing to share the food on her plate - (read: "the sooner my plate is cleared of this stuff, the sooner I can get to the dessert!") The only thing that she really, really, really wanted to clear off her plate was the seaweed.... the child is addicted to seaweed! (So much for tradition!) Thanks for sharing your party with us Maddie and thanks to Preeti for organizing the event!

Halloween Day - Part One!

I just got back from a full morning at school and so much has happened to the girls today that I thought I would do TWO entries. Both will be full of pictures!

Maddie decided that she was going to be a fairy princess for Halloween and Maddie also decided that Amelia would be a kitty cat for her first Halloween debut. I've gotta give Maddie full credit as she was seriously thinking ahead when we walked past Halloween costumes at Babies R Us over the summer - it was all her idea!





Running into Maddie's VP, a.k.a Super Sacha, in the school library is always a great way to start the day! Here's the deal with walking through the hallways with two beautiful children..... it takes FOREVER to get anywhere!!! :)










Maddie, Malin and Ms. Preeti found themselves leading the entire elementary school for the parade. Thank goodness I gave tours of my university campus - walking backwards while holding a baby, talking, and taking pictures/video can't be done by just anybody ya know!











Taking a break on the parade route for a partial family photo! We sure miss you dad!!!!!










Snoozing Kitties....Carol had some quality snuggle time with a sleeping Amelia while I had some quality one on one time with Ms. Maddie during the assembly!











I had to include the picture of art teacher extraordinaire, Robert Davis.... the man has got style! That and he makes Maddie laugh really, really hard!!!











We ended the morning with a PreK party where Maddie actually got down and dirty while searching for spiders in a glob of goo!!

Happy Halloween Punka-doodles!!!

Maddie's Day at Home

You've gotta give the girl credit...

Our house has been sick this week. No fevers - just asthmatic coughing that can be exhausting! Maddie stayed home on Monday, came home from school on Tuesday and stayed home on Wednesday. I was feeling under the weather so I had no problem "plugging" Maddie in for a Pixar marathon session. She's the one that turned the TV off - it wasn't my idea! She REALLY misses going to school when she is not there!!!!

You've gotta give the girl credit!

Stay at Home Mom

As of Friday, September 7 I officially went on maternity leave. I am now a stay at home mom for the next 10 weeks. Me... stay at home mom. I never thought those two would appear in the same sentence! I will enjoy the benefits though and especially enjoy these last few weeks of Maddie and Me time. I know that we'll still still have Maddie and Me time after Amelia arrives just like I'll have Amelia and Me time, but I'm sensing that my girl needs some reassurance.

Every morning we have the same ritual. Dad gives us kisses and heads to work. We eat breakfast together. Maddie feeds the fish and then we drive to school. Even though it's only three short blocks, who wants to walk when one is this pregnant? So, we drive! Maddie loves the wind in her hair and loves screaming "Ni Hao" out the window to the all of the guards we pass on the way to school.

The second year of school for Maddie is so familiar yet different. She's so much more "present" when we arrive at school. She knows to get the yellow folder out for Ms. Preeti and she knows to go to the chart of the wall where she puts a check next to her name and then puts a check in the box of chocolate milk or apple juice for lunch.

On Tuesday, I went into her class during Centers time. Ms. Preeti was helping the kids perfect their people drawing skills. No more stick figures for these little ones! They are noticing and drawing in the details now!! I was at the station where the kids pasted a head-shot photo onto paper and then drew in the rest of their body. Their first attempts were hilarious! Typically, the girls paid attention to the details like the colors of the flowers on their desk and the boys... well, they just wanted to finish it and get onto the next station. It was great fun witnessing all of this!

Stay at home mom? I don't know if I could just stay home, but I sure love going into Maddie's class!

Maddie's First Day of School!! Take 2

I have a daughter....
I have a daughter who is in her second year of school....
Maddie has grown up and she's an official member of Ms. Preeti's Pre-K 4 class.

It was slight torture for her because school actually started on Thursday but the school was "evaluating" all of the new kids in order to find the right placement for them. So much to Maddie's chagrin, she had to extend her summer vacation and extra few days... she hated that!!

She was ready to show off her new backpack from her birthday and her new Dora the Explorer watch from the knock-off market. There was just enough change for her too as she had a different classroom and a different aide, but she still has the same teacher. This is a good thing because Preeti knows Maddie. She's knows how Maddie thinks, how she works, what to do if, and if, and if...

The girl is in school again and I can tell it's going to be a really good year for her. There is a new library at the school which is almost as good as Christmas in her eyes. Her vocab allows her to express herself and she sees herself as a helper to the new kids. Life is good and Maddie knows it!!!!

Maddie's BIG Day!

Today was a special day for Maddie because it was her portfolio sharing day in class. I took a half day off of work so that I could spend the entire morning in her class and it was just special from beginning to end. When we walked into the class, Maddie immediately discovered the chrysalis had opened up and that there was a butterfly in the cage that she and her classmates had been watching for several weeks. The fact that the word, "chrysalis" came out of her mouth just about floored me. What three years old know that word and can recall it from the file banks in their brain?

Maddie and her classmates have been making books in class. Over several months, they were given folded paper, made a cover page, drew pictures in the middle pages and drew on an end page. They then sat down with Ms. Preeti and described what they had drawn so that she could write it down for them. The class then decided to invite all of the parents to sell their books so that they could have an ice cream party. Andy came into class for almost an hour today and Maddie sat with both of us and she read her books to us. We discovered that going "bonk" is a major theme in all of her books! She then told us how much to pay for each book and we obliged quite willingly!

Maddie followed her sale of books with the sharing of her portfolio from the year. Pretti had laminated a poem that Maddie had her hand prints on and gave them to the parents right now. I am so pregnant right that I immediately teared up because when she was 6 months old in Saudi Arabia, Val Awad had made the same poem and hand prints for us. I still have it in my classroom today! Maddie shared all of her things from the year and was so very proud of her work... each and every item had a story and the fact that she could describe in such detail things from October was amazing!

We ended the day by going out the playground and I pulled Maddie and all of her classmates in a wagon. Watching children at play is just so pure... I don't know how else to describe it! Maddie was so happy though to have her mommy be the center of attention - she actually seemed proud that I was playing with everybody! What a great year!

Maddie's Classmates 2006-2007

BUGS - My 7 - 11 Week in Review -

Maddie is addicted to bugs right now. I'm actually quite amazed because she is such a girls girl. She loves make-up, dresses, tea parties, nail polish..... and spiders, worms, and bugs! Ever since her class went on their first field trip to the Insect Museum, she's enthralled with starting her own collection.

Malin's mom is a first grade teacher at school and ordered some silkworms with mulberry leaves for Maddie's class. The kids have been watching the worms for the past week eat and eat and eat and eat. Finally, today they came to class and one of them had started to build its cocoon. It was actually even fascinating for me to see the little guy through the thin cocoon working diligently inside to make it stronger and thicker.

Maddie is even collecting bugs at home to take into class. She catches a bug in the morning and then brings into Ms. Preeti - she's so proud!

From Maddie's Weekly Newsletter....

• We continue to expand our knowledge about transformations and transitions through insect life cyles. Malin’s mother, Ms. Toa has given us some silkworms to keep and observe in our classroom. Children’s first observations were that they were caterpillars, that they could not be snakes, that they were worms! Great first observations! We then discussed what might possibly happen (prediction) after we looked after them for a while. Some children thought that they would become “very big”, “very hungry”, build a house and become a butterfly. These observations and predictions prove that children have extended their original learning about caterpillars and butterflies to other similar life cycles. Much excitement took place when we arrived in class this morning to find that one of the silkworms had metamorphosed into a pupa having built its cocoon.

April 16-20 Week in Review!

It was so nice to get home from Jingdezhen as I sure missed my hubby and my Maddie! I'm glad that I left though because I've decided that Andy MUST be a guest writer on this blog more often than not. I love to "hear" his voice on the blog and I hope that Maddie can "hear" that same voice when she reads this blog when she is 18!

Maddie is studying life cycles at school. I mentioned a few weeks ago how Malin's mommy brought in tadpoles and the children have been watching them turn into frogs right in front of their eyes. Now they are reading "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" to study how caterpillars turn into butterflies. This is all so good for Maddie and she understands that there is a life inside of me that is changing and becoming stronger to be introduced as a new brother or sister come September. Since they have been studying butterflies, I thought it was appropriate to get her a vase from Jingdezhen that had beautiful butterflies all over it! The vase has been added to room that has pieces from all the places she has been. She has the Barbie in an abaya from Saudi, the lion clock from Prague, the green lanterns from India, the elephant tapestry from Thailand, the snow globes from France... just to name a few.

Maddie had her first show and tell at school which was a big lesson for her. She had her M day back in February and didn't mind sharing her M things, but this time she brought somethings she really, really cared about. She brought her stuffed pink "horsey" that she received from Astrid's daughter in Saudi Arabia two years ago, her daddy horsey which is a Bryer horse Andy and I bought her in Vegas and a small purple horse that Ms. Zhou gave Maddie for Christmas. She absolutely-positively did not want to share them with anybody. The day started off with an argument between she and Roqueya, but I left the disagreement in Ms. Preeti's very capable hands and went to start my assembly with my 8th graders. I love Preeti so much for sending me the following email just an hour later as my insides were churning at leaving Maddie when she was being so stubborn and "unlady-like"!

"Hi there,

Just wanted to share. The "problem" was resolved this morning. Maddie hadn't wanted to give her purple pony to Rouqueya since she was playing with it. But we discussed what "Show and Tell" was aboout- bringing in something from home that you were willing to share with your classmates. AND taking turns. AND sharing with friends. The pics were taken a few minutes after you left...

Have a good day!"

On that note, Maddie had a great week. We ended it with sending Ms. Zhou home on Friday night so that mom and Maddie could have a girls night. The girls night turned into all the Links kids from ages 2-14 riding their bicycles in the streets, stopping to play duck-duck-goose on the front lawns as the parents chatted away on a warm Spring evening. it reminded me of Leave It To Beaver. Living in China is just so cool sometimes!

Have a good day!

April 2 - 6 Week in Review

When Maddie's teacher first saw the last week in review she made a very good point to me. At this age, our children's lives completely focus around school. It makes sense too. Maddie comes home at 3:00 and sleeps until 5:00 when Andy and I get home. We talk about the day and play for an hour before dinner at 6:00 and then take a bath at 6:30 for bed. We follow up with Maddie's favorite "doctor show" (Grey's Anatomy - this is another blog entry) and few books before heading to sleep at 7:30. Then we do the same thing all over again the next day!

Maddie's teacher had a tank full of goldfish in the classroom. First there were 12 goldfish and now we are down to one. When I ask her where all the goldfish have gone, she tells me they went to their Grandma and Grandpa's house! Malin's mom brought in tadpoles this week I think as a way to try to get the focus off the goldfish. It has been fun watching them turn into frogs - I have to admit that I've never really "seen" it happen before as I've only read about it in books!

Below is an exerpt from the Weekly Newsletter that Preeti sends out!

It was nice to see the children’s happy and tanned faces after Spring Break. It has been such a busy week back and with the two half days because of Parent Conferences, it seems to have gone in a blink!

Children had fun at the Easter Egg Hunt and party on Tuesday. They especially enjoyed making their own Easter baskets, coloring and decorating the eggs that the moms had prepared. Thanks once again to all the parents who participated and helped organize this fun event.

Talking about Easter eggs led to a discussion about which animals lay eggs. Children
brainstormed a list of animals they thought came from eggs and we are in the process of
researching these animals: chickens, ducks, elephants, snakes, frogs, turtles

We have new animals in our classroom! Malin brought in some tadpoles that she fished from a pond near hr home. A couple of them have developed front and back legs and children are observing the metamorphosis from tadpole to frog (hopefully!) first hand...

Spring has Sprung!

Here come Peter Cottontail! All of these songs that I've long forgotten keep popping into my head all over again! Maddie had an Easter party at school today. Ah, yes, there's that word that probably get one in trouble if they mentioned it in a public stateside school. Maddie celebrated EASTER at SCHOOL today! I'm being a bit obnoxious here, but I'm treasuring everything about life these days!

She made bunny ears, colored eggs, went on an Easter egg hunt, ate chocolate, ate even more chocolate.... did I mention she ate chocolate? It was such a special day for her because this really the first time she's ever gotten it. Maddie loved it that both Andy and I showed up to share the time with her. We showed up just in time to have some chocolate cake for Narumi's birthday part!!

After school, Maddie came to my classroom for an hour while my math students studied away around her. She simply sits at a student desk and works on her "homework" just like the other kids. It's simple - I give her extra math worksheets and she traces the numbers. She loves it and she fits right in. All of my kids know Maddie well and she feels that she is one of them. Truly, she is 3 going on 13!

After school we came home to a beautiful afternoon. For the first time, we turned the water on let her play outside. I pulled weeds while Maddie played in the water and used her chalk to write all over the back patio.

The air is warm, the kids are laughing while riding their bikes, the birds are singing... Spring has truly Sprung and I hope we get to have more weekdays just like this one!

Friday Guests to School

Almost all of our guests have come to school this year. Jan and Greg came a second day to read to the class and spend some quality "center" time with the kids. Maddie and the rest of the kids love being read to and often follow up by playing teacher themselves, reading to each other and holding the book up for others to see. Reading upside down is a true art form and takes years of practice - they might as well start the training now!

Greg read a book about ambulances as Travis, my nephew, is a paramedic/emt/firefighter for the Air Force. Jan also read a book and then they helped the kids in their centers with play-doh and painting. Ain't it fun to be three???!!!! I sure hope they are enjoying getting over jetlag!!

We live in China!

We live in China. HELLO!!! We live in China. Sometimes I forget that believe it or not! It really hit home a week ago Friday when Andy and I were in a taxi coming home from a lovely night out with Jeff and Daneah. We were crossing the Nanpu Bridge at 11:30 and Andy's phone rang. I thought it was Jeff and Daneah calling, but his words were quick and to the point. "OK. We will be home in 15-20 minutes." Ms. Zhou's exact words to him were this; "Maddie sick." My first thought was that this is the first time in two years that our incredible ayi has called us while we've been out. My second thought was WHY didn't I continue with my Mandarin lessons? We communicate great in person, but on the phone? Not so much!

In the end Maddie was not as bad as I had imagined on the 45 minute taxi ride home. Her fever was high and it held on to her fiercely for three days straight. By then she was coughing so bad that we kept her home from school anyway. She was stir crazy to say the least and was very ready for school on Thursday. She spent all Thursday morning trying to convince me that it really was okay to wear her jammies to school that day (her last day of school on Friday was PJ Day)! It was a good yet rough couple of days for her as she just wasn't quite herself, but she was able to participate in lots of fun stuff over two days! Ms. Preeti wrote the following in the class newsletter:

For several months now, a group of children have been very interested in trucks and are making increasingly more complex road and building structures with wood blocks. I have been monitoring their play and it seems to me that it is inspired by the construction sites they must see from the school bus on their way to school every morning. This interest is apparent in their journal entries as well as stories that they have been dictating to me. This week, we went to look at the construction site of the soon to be made HS building on our own campus. This site is ideally located as we can go to the first or second floor of the HS and see it from the big windows- a perfect viewpoint. We will be making regular “field trips” to this area to watch the buildings come up.

We have been reading and learning about leprechauns and shamrocks to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day (March 17). It is rumored that a leprechaun has been seen in the Early Childhood Section of SAS, Pudong. There have been some funny things happening in our classroom - a couple of times, when we came back from somewhere; we found the room messed up...(photo collage of leprechaun activities coming soon!) merely frivolous or fun.

So here's what I've learned this week: Your children get sick everywhere and anywhere in the world, you get to celebrate St. Patty's Day at school without having to worry about the separation of church and state, and I should've continued on with my Mandarin lessons no matter how busy I was at the time. Thank goodness we live in China!

Happy Year of the Golden Pig!

As I sat in the audience at the elementary assembly last week, I was completely amazed at how confident Maddie was up on stage. She IS the minority here yet she doesn't even notice... unless of course we're walking around Shanghai! She had spent the entire week preparing for her very first on stage performance. Lessons were filled with the meaning of Chinese New Year and she made lanterns and scrolls filled with Chinese characters. I very simply asked her what they said and she very simply told me, "Shin nien quai le." "Of course it did," I thought as I searched the files in my brain to recall that little tidbit I had forgotten! We had a Chinese dress made for her at the fabric market in the fall and she just managed to squeeze into one last time for the New Year celebration at school. After a big meal full of homemade dumplings and visits from Grandpa Earl and Grandma Barbara, she was off to perform her two songs on stage with her peers! It was a perfect start to a perfect holiday!