Ni Hao

The flight was the best yet. Stella was sooooo good. She was awake for most of the LAX-NRT flight which made me nervous, but she finally passed out spot on her bedtime for a few hours. She woke up for about the last 30 minutes or so. The big difference was that she was happy to be in her own seat for once. In the middle photo, her seat is fully reclined to an almost flat bed. She figured out that if she stood on the end of her "bed" that she could stand about 3 inches away from the Disney channel. That made her happy so she would bunch up her nose and squeal with joy. The latter was making me nervous as I wasn't sure how long she was going to squeal for. She also was happy to get on the second flight from NRT-HKG. She even waved and said, "Die, Die!" to the guy operating the jetway because she knew she was about to go somewhere. Then, she slept almost the entire flight, as did I.

My jet lag has been horrible. She's been just ok. She woke up starving last night around 3am but fell back asleep after some milk. I woke up at 1am, not to return to sleep. She likes the way her Keds sound on the mall floor so in the morning she did two full laps around the mall (it's circular) and went to the playroom. Then, lunch and a hefty nap. Then, we went to our first Mandarin playgroup at the LRC. I was dreading it because I had to get her in a taxi to the LRC by myself and I was soooo tired. But, it was definitely worth it. There were 5 other kids but she was the youngest. What surprised me was that when the teacher asked her in Mandarin to do something she'd do it. Even if she was the first kid asked, she'd do it. I had no idea what she was asking her to do until I saw the other kids do it too. I can tell the other kids are half-Chinese and are in this class because their parents don't speak enough Mandarin at home. Their moms are Chinese. Stella and I are the only non-natives. She loved this class. They learned about fruit, sang songs and at one point they sang this dog song I remember from being a kid (am drawing a blank on the name). Everyone was supposed to walk around in a circle but she stood in the mush pot doing her Axel Rose, hip-swaying dance. But, she did sound like she was actually repeating the words and I learned more Mandarin today than I have in the 5 years we've been in Hong Kong. The teacher asked to shake her hand when we left but Stella leaned over and gave her a kiss.

Mandarin class ended at 5pm so we headed to the playground. Dan had to work so we intended to stay at the LRC for dinner. Stella had such a good time for such a tired little girl. She met a little boy, maybe 3 years old and followed him around giggling. Then, right as we were about to leave some older girls ranging I'm guessing between 4-7 years old came running in. They were playing tag. One saw Stella and started to lead her around. Stella was in heaven and they kept hugging each other. So, I went to sit back down. She chased them around while they played and vice versa. They were very, very nice to her. In the last photo above, Stella was holding court. She was tired and sat down against the jungle gym and one by one, the other girls sat around her. I have no idea what they were talking about as I kept my distance, but they were clearly focused on Stella, petting her hair and hugging her. It was very cute. Stella noticed that I was no where to be found (this was after about 20+ minutes) so she ran over to me, exhausted. One of the girls ran up to her mom who was sitting a few tables over. I heard her tell her mom that she wanted to hug Stella. Her mom said for her to go ask me if that's ok. While this was going on, I picked up Stella and was gathering our things up to go. The little girl came over but was too shy to ask permission. Stella saw her and wanted to get down. She walked up to the little girl and gave her a slight hug in a "this is for your benefit, not mine" kind of way that she has. And, off we went. It was dark by then and she almost passed out in the cab.

Tomorrow is swimming lessons and coffee with her friends.