Sept 11

Princess was born on Sept 11. We have celebrated her birthday in China for 3 years. When I tell my my students they say, in shock, that's a bad day for a birthday.
My neighbor (in China) just had a C-section to prevent her baby from having a bad birthday Sept. 3, all ghosts day. Actually the C-section rate in China is quite high. I was really shocked because in the States the cost of a C-section is quite high. In China it is high too, but when you only get one shot at a baby, the mom's are easily talked into a C-section if she can afford it.
Anyway, Princess was not a C-section and she took her sweet time coming out so her birthday is Sept. 11. In the States, I think it is a heavy thing for a little kid to have that birthday. On 9-11-01, we were thinking about having a baby and I thought the world was just so sad, that we should just not do that. My husband, the optimist, said that we should have a baby since so many people had died that day, we should make more Americans! So 3 years later, Princess was born. I think that her birthday is good, it represents hope and that life goes on.
At age 5, she wants to just have a birthday and not a history lesson. So we have enjoyed letting her have a fun birthdays in China. Definitely the Chinese know the date as being important in the world, but it is a normal day for them, business as usual.
We selected the cake from the same bakery as last year, they make some beautiful cakes but the taste like whip cream and cardboard. I always thought the displays were fake cakes, but theirs were actually crumbling so I guess they are real. The freshly made one was much more amazing than the display.

Freshly made on the stand

The display

So last year Princess took a big cake to school and they threw her a party complete with gifts and even made us a DVD of the occasion. This year we brought a cake in the morning and picked her up at lunch and they had given her a giant stuffed dolphin among other things.
Now they know that we live in a little apartment, just like they do, so why they gave her such a huge thing is just crazy. I know it is the thought that counts, but the ocean of problems that this dolphin has created is drowning us.

Dolphin

Little Guy has continued to not blend at school. They say he doesn't listen. He still fights, but they are play fights and they aren't worried about them. The problem is that he won't sit in a pink chair. He wants to sit in the teacher's blue stool. So yesterday, we took the time to get a show everyone working with him the sign for sit. He sits pretty quickly when show the sign. In fact sometimes when he is having a rough time at home we sign sit and he sits and seems to feel successful in being able to know what to do, so he gets up in a better state of mind. So Princess's birthday was not doubt to overwhelming for him. It's her birthday so she gets to sit on the special teacher's stool (the very one the had been not wanting him to sit on) and she has cake and gets this enormous dolphin. So they had a big fight.
The teachers had been patient with him before because they want Princess to come to class. She gives a lot of face to the school, she really is their poster child. But now Princess and Little Guy are fighting in class. Not good.
We arrive to pick them up and they are screaming about the dolphin, so Chris quickly takes Little Guy out of there while I stay with the dolphin and Princess to talk with the teachers.
The good Chinese English teacher is pulled in to translate for the head teacher of the class. She is a perky little gal and I could see it hurt her to translate. I asked if they had tried signing sit to him and they said yes, he had done it 2 times. I'm thinking sitting 2 times is better than the day before, so it is progress. But the bottom line was that he is on a month trial in the class. And that they believe "it is his fate" to go to a special school at the end of the month. It got kind of ugly in the reasons why they didn't think he could stay, and they were very clear that they still wanted Princess to come. Our original conversation in enrolling him was that he would try that class for a month but they would put him in a different class the next month if it didn't work. They forgot to translate that the different class was a different school entirely.
So all this was said in Chinese and English, and I imagine the English version was probably watered down. Princess is bilingual. She knows what was up.
I knew what was up too, this was just the first of what is to be no doubt a long series of uncomfortable conversations with educators as a parent of a special needs kid. Yuck.
I biked home with the giant dolphin and Princess in the rain.
Princess got home and said she never wanted to go to school again because they didn't want to be friends with her there. I thought her interpretation of events was so sad for her to say that.
I don't know what will happen with the school since the director of the school wasn't there and she is they one that really says whats up and there is a whole big picture university politics involved so the actual teachers are just saying how they feel. And I do feel for them.
So we tried to not let it spoil the rest of the day.
We had McD's for dinner. And yes, the hamburgers in Harbin have suffered the same distasteful change as the Beijing and Huai Rou burgers. At McD's there were 2 deaf guys and we tried to get Little Guy to notice them because they were conversing quite passionately in sign and we are pretty sure he hasn't seen to many deaf folks signing other than on our DVDs. Princess was fascinated by them, but he wouldn't even notice them. He has associated that we are a family and that he is like us and everybody else is different and is staring at us so he shouldn't bother with any looking at anyone unless he is having a tantrum and wants that attention.
We got yummy Maky Baky cakes. With the exploding birthday candle that sings.

maky Baky cake Real chocolate, frosting, strawberries and blueberries

Harbin, China