Linguistical Adventures in Shanghai

The beginning was really rough for me with the jetlag and the virtual single mother role. The bathing in this really hot weather is what is high maintenance and not having a high chair to strap down my young son when he decides he wants to get out of his chair and walk on the chairs around the table and dribble his food all over his lap!

I finally hired a nanny to help me out part-time after the kids get home from school. It's been a great relief to be able to have a meal uninterrupted and unmicrowaved!

We're finally over the jetlag and the kids are into the school groove now. K, my sweet easy-going 5 year-old has been having a bit of delayed reaction to the new Chinese preschool/Kindergarten which speaks in about 90% Mandarin. She seemed to be fine the first few days of school.

I have to say, I don't even understand what all the kids are saying, some of it is jargon (from Communist legacy days I think) and some of it is the various accents of the local Shanghainese children and some of it is just the plain speed of their language. K's been crying the past two days as the bus comes to pick her up or when I ride in with her.

J, my wee two-year old has been doing okay but when i go to school with him, he cries as well when i try to leave the classroom. Ironically, he also had a delayed reaction with the first day seemingly fine as he happily jumped off the bus into my arms. I think it's just the shock of having everyone speak Chinese plus some of the kids in her class are kind of rough when the teachers aren't within visual range.

I watched through the window and saw a couple of kids try to yank Jareth's toy cars away from him and another kick it away from him! That was the day that the substitute was subbing for the regular teacher. Luckily today was much more orderly, otherwise, I'd have some serious doubts as to whether to go in there and beat down some toddlers!

To make things more challenging, K is in a class with children who are all about a year older than her due to a misunderstanding at the Kindergarten about what age official school starts in each country. Apparently, they start with first grade at 6-7 and there isn't a Kindergarten in the school system. Kinder is all private. So I am sure it is triply hard for K as she is also joining the class at the end of the semester and she just about broke down when they asked her to join them in a dance class they have been going to to prepare for an upcoming performance. It's way over her head as they've been doing these moves for months now.

The same goes for the Chinese. Apparently they all know how to put together words and simple sentences using pinyin which is the focus in the early years, not learning traditional characters per se. That was eye-opening to me. I inquired about moving her to the lower grade, but the teacher thinks that it might be harder for K to adjust if she prob. should've been placed in to begin with so I am going along with it for the time being.

I haven't been doing any of the home projects I had set out to do bc I took out a lot of the books I had planned to read due to the weight only to find out I hardly have any of the books I was so excited to read! I also haven't worked on a photo album bc I'd much rather go out and do shopping. (We're out in the boonies near the Shanghai American school in Puxi and it takes forever to get anywhere with my sister's driver who is booked up most of the time with his main job of shuttling L's husband and my sister. It doesn't help that we want to get out of the "Dodge" and task him with shuttling us around for some entertainment every chance we get!

Haven't found too much for myself but have been shopping for future gifts- Christmas, bdays, kids etc. Tons of knock-off stuff here but it's a pity most of the sizes are too small... I'm relegated to bags, wallets, jewelry and the occasional jacket. Some decent selection for kids stuff. Oh, and the alterations here are soo cheap. Like a dollar to shorten jeans!

Good thing I was prepared and brought all my post-partum first and second year clothes with me to be altered. Yay! bc Lord knows I don't have time to shop for myself when I'm stateside with the kids. At least I can look like I have a decent figure with well-fitting clothes!