A couple weeks ago was the daycare's annual lantern festival, which is an Austrian tradition that celebrates St. Martin. I really don't know what lanterns have to do with Martin, but let me google that for you. The group that the Noodle and the Nugget are in hosted their celebration at 4.30 pm on a Wednesday, because apparently no one's parents work, and, in a rare change of events, the teachers decided that it would be too cold to let the kids parade outside, so it was hosted in a darkened classroom.
Indeed it was so dark that all of our photos came out plain black. This means you'll have to rely on the evocative power of the written word. I hear that people can't do that any more, especially millennials, but the readership of this blog is very, very exclusive (hi, mom and dad!). What you do is read the words and just imagine stuff. I believe in you.
So what is supposed to happen at the lantern festival was that the parents sit on teeny weeny chairs in a big circle, the lights go out, the kids (ages 1 - 3.5) parade in holding paper lanterns (with real candles for everyone aged 2 and up!) singing the Lantern Song. This is followed by the performance of five or six songs and poems. Then punch and a brioche roll for everyone. Hooray!
What happened instead was like the bar scene from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Time stopped, nothing made sense, we weren't sure if this was hilarious or frightening.
Only half of the children actually came in singing, of which only one of them audibly (bless her!). The rest were evenly divided between running to their parents, crying, falling over, or staring stupidly into space. The teachers (bless them!) sang loudly and looked at the children encouragingly, but toddlers have a mulish recalcitrance to perform on command. These ones, in particular, could not have given less of a f***.
The Nugget, who can't walk very well yet, came and sat on my lap. She did a great job dancing in place and hurling her lamp around, though.
The Noodle, by contrast, is one of the four "big kids" in the class (>3 years) and was therefore supposed to join in the recitation of a poem (calm down, it had like 12 words) and also play a lead role in a little play that they put down.
She was not having it.
"No," she said when her turn came. "Meh. Meh meh mmph," she said, turning her head to the wall.
"PLEASE," begged the teacher's assistant. "You practiced! You did so well! You can do it."
At these moments it's not clear what the best parenting approach is. I tend to freeze like a deer in headlights. On one hand, she's three. On the other hand, I'm half Chinese. I wasn't sure what the appropriate mix of flexible, supportive, cajoling or threatening (I mean 'ambitious') would be, so I just shuffled through all of them in the space of about 30 seconds.
"That's okay babe, if you're feeling shy you don't have to go. You can stay right here with me. We can sing from here together... But don't you want to go? It looks so fun. I really think you should go. I bet you'd do a great job! Look, your teacher wants you to go. Get up. Go. GO! Come on, just go. Please go? I'd be so happy if you'd go. I'll be so sad if you don't go. Go? No? Okay that's fine, stay right here. Don't even worry about it. You can tell us the poem later. Are you sure you don't want to go?"
I'm pretty sure this is actually some form of emotional abuse, but never mind. In the end she stayed right next to us all the way until the end of the performance and didn't even really sing along once. My only comforts were the boy (also one of the big kids - YES!) who basically napped next to his mom, and the little girl who zipped around like a caffeinated wasp the whole time, landing on various people's laps. I felt tremendous solidarity with their parents.
And I remembered the mantra: "Do I really care?"
Well actually yeah kind of. But whatever.
By the end of the evening (i.e. 20 minutes after it started), the chairs were no longer in a circle and children were scattered in diverse states of disarray and undress. The parents had lowered their expectations from "I shall take sweet Christmas-y pictures of little Mary and Bobby singing like wee angels" to "I shall keep Mary and Bobby in a holding pattern with their pants on until we can go home".
Most of the candles in the lanterns had gone out, everyone was talking, and only the two teachers (bless them!) were still trying to hold the whole thing down through the powers of positivity and bloody-minded singing. May they both win the lottery one day, really. Whatever they earn it is not enough.
And then we all had punch and got the hell out of there as quick as we could.
Which isn't to say that we aren't totally excited for next year's Lantern Festival. Maybe one day my kids will even participate. I'll light a candle for that.
Indeed it was so dark that all of our photos came out plain black. This means you'll have to rely on the evocative power of the written word. I hear that people can't do that any more, especially millennials, but the readership of this blog is very, very exclusive (hi, mom and dad!). What you do is read the words and just imagine stuff. I believe in you.
So what is supposed to happen at the lantern festival was that the parents sit on teeny weeny chairs in a big circle, the lights go out, the kids (ages 1 - 3.5) parade in holding paper lanterns (with real candles for everyone aged 2 and up!) singing the Lantern Song. This is followed by the performance of five or six songs and poems. Then punch and a brioche roll for everyone. Hooray!
What happened instead was like the bar scene from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Time stopped, nothing made sense, we weren't sure if this was hilarious or frightening.
Only half of the children actually came in singing, of which only one of them audibly (bless her!). The rest were evenly divided between running to their parents, crying, falling over, or staring stupidly into space. The teachers (bless them!) sang loudly and looked at the children encouragingly, but toddlers have a mulish recalcitrance to perform on command. These ones, in particular, could not have given less of a f***.
The Nugget, who can't walk very well yet, came and sat on my lap. She did a great job dancing in place and hurling her lamp around, though.
The Noodle, by contrast, is one of the four "big kids" in the class (>3 years) and was therefore supposed to join in the recitation of a poem (calm down, it had like 12 words) and also play a lead role in a little play that they put down.
She was not having it.
"No," she said when her turn came. "Meh. Meh meh mmph," she said, turning her head to the wall.
"PLEASE," begged the teacher's assistant. "You practiced! You did so well! You can do it."
At these moments it's not clear what the best parenting approach is. I tend to freeze like a deer in headlights. On one hand, she's three. On the other hand, I'm half Chinese. I wasn't sure what the appropriate mix of flexible, supportive, cajoling or threatening (I mean 'ambitious') would be, so I just shuffled through all of them in the space of about 30 seconds.
"That's okay babe, if you're feeling shy you don't have to go. You can stay right here with me. We can sing from here together... But don't you want to go? It looks so fun. I really think you should go. I bet you'd do a great job! Look, your teacher wants you to go. Get up. Go. GO! Come on, just go. Please go? I'd be so happy if you'd go. I'll be so sad if you don't go. Go? No? Okay that's fine, stay right here. Don't even worry about it. You can tell us the poem later. Are you sure you don't want to go?"
I'm pretty sure this is actually some form of emotional abuse, but never mind. In the end she stayed right next to us all the way until the end of the performance and didn't even really sing along once. My only comforts were the boy (also one of the big kids - YES!) who basically napped next to his mom, and the little girl who zipped around like a caffeinated wasp the whole time, landing on various people's laps. I felt tremendous solidarity with their parents.
And I remembered the mantra: "Do I really care?"
Well actually yeah kind of. But whatever.
By the end of the evening (i.e. 20 minutes after it started), the chairs were no longer in a circle and children were scattered in diverse states of disarray and undress. The parents had lowered their expectations from "I shall take sweet Christmas-y pictures of little Mary and Bobby singing like wee angels" to "I shall keep Mary and Bobby in a holding pattern with their pants on until we can go home".
Most of the candles in the lanterns had gone out, everyone was talking, and only the two teachers (bless them!) were still trying to hold the whole thing down through the powers of positivity and bloody-minded singing. May they both win the lottery one day, really. Whatever they earn it is not enough.
And then we all had punch and got the hell out of there as quick as we could.
Which isn't to say that we aren't totally excited for next year's Lantern Festival. Maybe one day my kids will even participate. I'll light a candle for that.
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