Birthday Party No-Nos

Michael's teacher was sick today, so the school asked me to be Michael's teacher this morning, while the girl that I've been training as my replacement took over my class. I agreed, got the schedule and wasn't too worried until I found out about the birthday party at 10:30am. They arrive at school at 9, have group time at 9:15, recess from 9:30-10 and then they're supposed to be free to explore the learning centers for a little over an hour before getting ready for lunch at 11:20. But, today was Audrey's birthday, and Mom felt that 10am was too early for cake, and Michael's teacher felt that 11am was too close to lunch for cake, so they compromised on 10:30, which is possibly the worst possible time to have cake. You see, after recess they all have to go to the bathroom and have a drink of water. By the time we get back to the class, it's 10:05. Then we have to clean up all the toys and rearrange furniture for the birthday party at 10:20 so we're ready in case mom shows up a few minutes early. In this case, mom did not, but she showed up with a whole bunch of shiny helium filled balloons which the kids promptly started fighting over. All the girls wanted one of the three Disney Princess balloons and all the boys wanted the single train balloon.

I finally got the kids calmed down and seated for the "party." Audrey had requested a strawberry cake, so mom had brought the strawberriest cake she could find. The entire top was covered in whole strawberries, which makes cutting small slices very difficult. The bakery had suggested taking off all the strawberries first, cutting the cake, and then putting the strawberries back on. When 18 kids are clamouring for cake, the last thing you want to be doing is removing and replacing strawberries, but that's what we did.

Then as soon as they finished the cake, they all started fighting over the balloons again, so I had them all sit down and sang a few songs while I quickly tried to think up a way of distributing them that would not result in tears and tantrums. The assistants suggested just holding the bunch of them and letting each child choose a string, and whatever they got, they got. I decided against this as yes, it would be fair, but very few would be happy. The boys would probably end up with the princesses, and then their parents would complain.

So, I quickly grabbed the least popular balloons and asked the birthday girl to hand them out. The children who didn't care what they got, or who had the least amount of patience put up their hands quickly for the balloons. I chose the next bunch, saving the most popular for the end, for the kids who REALLY wanted them. In the end, it almost worked out. The only problem was the poor birthday girl got left with the Hello Kitty balloon that nobody wanted, and who was on the verge of tears until mom distracted her with the promise of lots of presents to come.

By the time the cake and balloon fiasco were done it was after eleven, too late to let them have centers time before we would have to clean up for lunch, so we had another group time. So, basically, I spent the entire morning doing group time. I had no idea what songs they already knew, so we were doing all the basics. And I mean ALL of them. My voice was almost gone by the end of that morning.

So, to anyone who may be reading this: When planning a birthday party at school, never plan it for the middle of the children's centers time. Never bring a hard to cut cake. And never, ever bring gifts or goodies that aren't all exactly the same.

I had told the school that I couldn't sub in the afternoon as I had promised Michael that I would take him swimming. However, I agreed to be back by 4:30 to sub for the Grade 3s. As time was of the essence, it was rainly heavily, and I was getting paid overtime for subbing, I decided to take a cab to the pool. I had the name of the sports complex in Chinese, but not the address. I hoped it would be enough. It wasn't. So, he had to pull over, pull out his glasses and peer at where I was pointing on my bilingual map. He finally nodded, although he still looked pretty uncertain, and away we went. About half way there, a lightbulb came on over his head and he started pretending to lift weights while smiling and nodding his head. I said the Chinese word for "yes" and then he was much happier. So was I, as I had only ever been there by MRT and had no clue how to drive there either.

I bought our tickets and we went down to the pool. One of the pool attendants showed us where to leave our shoes and then directed us past the ladies change room to the "family changing room" which was a corner beside the snack bar that you could pull a curtain around. No shelves, hooks or bench to put your bags or clothes on. Whatever. We quickly changed and put on our attractive bathing caps (which are mandatory at every public pool and hot spring here) even though neither of us had any intention of getting our heads wet.

We took our belongings over to the lockers and I let Michael choose which one we should use. They required a 10NT coin, so I got out two (because I always have bad luck with those types of lockers) and tried to lock our belongings in. Two coins later, no luck getting the key out. Another attendant came over and tried to help. After a few minutes, she went over to the snack bar, got out another 10NT coin and had us move everything to another locker, which worked.

Michael had a lot of fun in the little kids pool. We were the only ones in it. The water was warm and came up to my waist, so Michael was able to walk around just fine by himself. He wouldn't go down the slide without holding my hand as he couldn't get his feet under himself fast enough and would go under unless I was holding him. He played with his "rowboat" most of the time. It's basically an inflatable flutter board that I got him at the cheap store. We stayed for a little over an hour, and Michael only tried to break the rule of no kids in the hot tubs once. I thought it went pretty well.

I wasn't about to change in the "family changing room" now that we were all wet and there was nowhere to shower or put our dry or wet things, so we went to the ladies changing room. I immediately realized why they had taken us to the snack bar curtained corner instead - no changing stalls or curtained showers, and many women showering and changing. But, there were benches and shelves, so we just changed as quickly as possible. However, I was a little embarassed at Michael staring at all the strange women. I am never taking Michael swimming by myself again...

It was pouring when we left, so we caught a cab back to the school and I helped the grade 3s with the board games they were making. One group was having a hard time without realizing it. They were convinced they were done, but when I was reading over their rules, they kept on talking about owning weapons and using money to buy weapons. However, on their board game, there was only mention of killing bad guys, and nothing about weapons or how to acquire them. Of course, they could see the logic in everything, but I was completely baffled at their lack of common sense. I finally got them to see a little bit of reason by the end of class, but I'm not sure it will make any difference.

After school, I was too tired to find someplace to eat, so we went to the cafe that used to be my old classroom four years ago for dinner. Michael really wanted the spaghetti, and I ordered the Japanese mushroom stew. Michael barely ate anything (he said it was too spicy), so I ended up eating almost all of both of our meals. I have gained a lot of weight here, and meals like this one are one of the biggest reasons why.

By the time we were done, May was also done upstairs, so she came down and offered us a ride home, which was really nice as I was exhausted.