Month 28: Stories from school

8.30AM – 5.30PM

9 hours!

No, I am not talking about my working hours here. This is in fact the number of hours that Bing-Bing stays at her kindy from Monday to Friday. Bing-Bing sleeps for about 11-12 hours at night, which effectively means that we have just about 3 hours left to directly interact with our daughter on a daily basis. I am always curious about what Bing-Bing does at school, and one of my biggest wishes was to become invisible to watch Bing-Bing play and learn without distracting her. While waiting for my wish to come true, Alex and I usually spent time catching up with Bing-Bing’s teachers, and their stories as well as observations have made us smile every time. In this entry, let me start by telling my favorite stories first.

#1 – A lovely SMS

Bing-Bing is the smallest toddler at her (new) kindy and she had her first class exactly a day after her second birthday. We were so worried on that day that Bing-Bing would not settle in well. Before lunch, we received a short SMS with a photo attached, saying “Margaret is having a good time matching all the boxes. Don’t worry too much” from her teacher. Since our first transition visit, I always had an intuition that Bing-Bing would like her new kindy and that timely and thoughtful SMS simply made my day. Every now and then I still texted Bing-Bing's teacher to see what my Bing-Bing was up to.

#2 – Show n Tell

Friday morning was the time for “Show and Tell” at Bing-Bing’s kindy and the kids took turn to present anything they wanted to their friends. For example, a little girl was really excited about her first flight, so her parents printed out her ticket and she proudly presented it. A boy even showed his caterpillar and explained how it evolved to be a butterfly (I don’t like this caterpillar part very much but strangely enough, the kids do). We often asked Bing-Bing what she would like to ‘show and tell’ and helped her prepare accordingly. More importantly, we were always keen to know how it went from her teachers.

During the first few weeks, Bing-Bing was shy standing in front a big crowd (evidenced by the fact that she either put her finger or even her whole hand into her mouth), but she was more confident sharing her stories with a smaller audience. Well, I guess that's normal. Public speaking was the number one fear even in America (drowning only made top 4), let alone Bing-Bing was only two years old. All we need is just a little patience together with a lot of practice.

Last week, Bing-Bing wanted to tell her friends about her handmade butterfly and dragonfly. When we arrived at 5PM, Mona greeted us with a warm smile and instantly told us about Bing-Bing’s “Show and Tell”: 

Mona: Margaret was much more confident presenting her "show and tell" this morning and she put no finger into her mouth.

Alan: Oh wow, well done Margaret

Mona: We still needed to ask her questions but she managed to answer all of them with good sentences. A girl even asked Margaret “Why are you showing us these?” and she answered “I made it with my Daddy and Mommy”

Alan:  Even nailed the Q&A session!

Practice makes Perfect. I often played the game "Opposites" with Bing-Bing and encouraged her to be Confident, not Shy. In his book "Outliers", M Gladwell suggested that it should take 10,000 hours of practice to achieve mastery in a field. We would continue to work on this, for sure. 

#3 – Margaret’s table

Bing-Bing was sick and she stayed at home with us for two days. I wondered whether the kids at school realized that she was away and whether they missed their little friend Margaret at all. Alex was kind enough to voice up my little concern to a teacher.

Alex: We just wonder whether the kids realized that Margaret was away. Alan had this question on our way here.

Mona: Yes, they did. They kept asking where Margaret was. During lunch, everyone realized that Margaret's seat was vacant and they'd like to keep it vacant the whole time.

Alan: Oh where is her seat?

Mona: It’s right here. We set her on this small table with two other children, so she can be less chatty and focus on her lunch. In the large table, she just chats away.

My interpretation of all this was that my little girl is pretty popular and chatty at school. More importantly, this was a good sign that Bing-Bing could socialize and communicate with other toddlers (who were 1 to 3 years older than her). 

 

#4 – "I am a big girl"

When I said Bing-Bing was the smallest baby in her class, that's not entirely true. Actually, that honor should go to Pablo, a 8-month old baby with big blue eyes and the second cutest smile. His mother was the Assistant Manager of the kindy and she brought Pablo to her work everyday. It just happened that Pablo had an Avent milk bottle that looked exactly the same as the one we brought for Bing-Bing. She usually drinks from a cup already, most of the time, she only uses her non-spill bottle in the car.

One morning Bing didn't finish her milk bottle in the car so she carried around when she got to school. And this conversation happened…
 

Matilda (4 years old): Margaret, why do you hold Pablo’s bottle?

Bing-Bing: It’s mine.

Matilda (a bit confused): So are you a baby?

Bing-Bing (in her serious face): No no Bing Bing is not a baby. I am a big girl. Big girl!

As per the teacher, Bing-Bing then repeated her sentence “I am a big girl” for about ten minutes and insisted to drink milk from a cup to make her point. She now refused to drink from her bottle at home or in the car. This little girl is, to quote Alex, “quite a character”…

For years, researchers have tried to explain whether a person is born with personalities or whether the world around us shaped who we are. Well, the debate is still going on out there but I myself chose the easy answer – Both. I still wish to be invisible to watch Bing-Bing in action at school, to know more about that part of the world that is shaping her.

AP