Maya graduates from preschool!!!

A big milestone for Maya today. The graduation ceremony is held at her school, attended by all her teachers, classmates and their parents. Teacher Bea kicks off the event with a nice speech about the school and the four kids who're graduating, then Teacher Carole (Maya's favorite teacher. But she left on Monday to start a job as an event organizer at a golf course) presents each of the four kids preschool diploma. Maya receives many gifts from her beloved teachers, including a sculpture of a girl riding a scooter from Kelly, her art teacher. Kelly says that she made it for Maya because Maya loves riding scooters. Thank you, Kelly!

Maya's Kindergarden will start on August 16.  

Maya's ear infection

Maya has an ear infection and has to see the doctor. She seems to be proud of that and says that she's going to tell all her friends about the "infection." She barely slept last night because of her ear pain - she ran back and forth between her room and mama and pappa's room. Hopefully she'll sleep better tonight.

Everyone else is a bit sick too. Mama coughs, Luca coughs, and even Pappa (on a buisness trip in London) coughs. Glad that Pappa will be back tomorrow.

Pappa is traveling

Pappa is in London. Maya and Luca are competing for Mama's attention. If one sits with mama, the other would squeeze himself or herself in between - a fight thus ensues. If Mama gives one food or water, the other would want the same thing. The first night of pappa's absence, Luca sleeps poorly and wakes up often. Mama has to sleep on the mattress next to his crib, letting him grab her hand (a habit of his since waipo and waigon's visit) throughout the night. In the early morning, Maya comes to Luca's room and sleeps next to mama. Since the mattress is small, couple of times she rolls to the floor and then climbs back. When she gets up, she shows me her fingers, which seem to be coated with chocolates. "What's that?" mama asks, thinking that she's stolen some chocolate cake from the kitchen, leftover from a party. "Mama, I pooped on my pants!" she reports. "A lot!" Luca, barely waking up in his crib, hears Maya's voice and stands and smiles and extracts the pacifier from his mouth and throws it with all his might at a wall, something he does whenever he gets excited, and jumps up and down like a little deer.

We don't get to Maya's school until 10:20am...it's just a lot of cleaning to do and there's quite a bit drama at the breakfast table too .

Maya watches a dance show

June 1

While Pappa puts Luca to nap, Maya and Mama watch a children's dance show (ballet and folk dance) at Evergreen Community College. It's a serious performance and even the 3 to 5-years-old groups dance well. Throughout the show, Maya stands on her chair so she can see more clearly. She applauds enthusiastically after every performance, and is particularly excited about the dances by kids her age. At the end of the show, I ask her what her favorite performance is. She says it's everything. So I guess it's time for her to start to take a dance class again. (The first time we took her to a ballet class, which was about one year ago, she didn't participate much, just watching the teacher curiously, though she showed us several movements she had learned when she got home.)

In the afternoon, we have some guests: Ryan/Jiin, Marta/Pasha, Xiaofang/David. It's warm, a perfect day to swim. We've used the swimming pool quite a few times since we got back from Europe.