Chinese Program

Admission: I sometimes laugh at parents shuffling their kids among a dozen different programs. I vowed to give very careful considerations before I get Sienna into any. She needs to do ballet because that's the only physical activity that requires the participation of her feet and yet she loves doing it. Other than that, she is a hands-on person. Hands only. And she prefers to sit on her collapsible stroller until it collapses one day from her growing weight.

Without much consideration though, I got her in this 2-hour Chinese (Mandarin) program every Saturday afternoon, starting today. As somebody points out, "learning Chinese is not an option." I don't mind much if she becomes a cashier at a Wal Mart store in Scarborough, but she must learn Chinese. This program is designed to give pre-schoolers a Chinese-speaking environment. The reading/writing part will come in much later. It's like you pay to get a Mandarin-speaking person to baby-sit her for 2 hours. I like this idea.

I dropped her off at the site, and went to do my grocery shopping at a supermarket across the street. By the time I picked her up, she'd turned herself into a little witch-look-alike: a pink shinning tiara, a purple tutu and neon-green flower. Calling herself a princess, she was beaming a big smile with a sparkling wand in her hand... I was very pleased. Because I told her she won't be going to another school, she was just going to play. And that was what she did this afternoon, precisely.