At our international fellowship, I'm the coordinator of the toddler's class. This past year, we've had some pretty major behavior problems from 2 of the families concerning their daughters (both have 2 daughters, ages 2 and 4). Both of these families are from different countries in Africa (our fellowship has a large number of African nationals who are in China to study--usually Chinese medicine--and teach English). I LOVE the African culture; I always have. But I've discovered that I don't know much about how to communicate effectively cross-culturally, at least with the parents of these little misbehaving girls! So I've spent the last several months trying to figure out how to draw boundaries with these parents and kids and let them know that biting the teacher is not an acceptable way of communicating in the class (the toddlers are the ones doing the biting, not the parents!). And I honestly have NO IDEA how well I've done this. There's a good chance I've gone about it all wrong and have totally offended in some manner...But at least the biting hasn't happened in quite some time! :)Besides Chinese culture, the other one that I'm still wrestling with how to navigate on a regular basis is the Korean one that is so largely represented at our international school. MOST of the students are Korean (like 80%), and since I am the class mom for 3rd grade, involved in the other kids' classes on a volunteer basis, and am teaching there, I have a lot of Korean culture that I should have absorbed by now! Unfortunately, I dont' think I've done very well with that one, either! I ha an incident this past week that kind of reminded me of a scene out of a bad sitcom where the moms on the show all have way too much time on their hands. Long story short, I've been trying to play the ambassador for the western moms in the 3rd grade to the Korean mom 3rd grade ambassador throughout the year. Well, we had a misunderstanding about the end of the year teacher gift, which resulted in me being the topic of the Korean mom's chat room for the next several days! It was so frustrating! It thought I'd communicated clearly but in love, but it was still misunderstood, and I'm pretty sure it was then widely circulated! I had other moms treating me funny for the next several days at school, and I'm pretty sure that it had everything to do with this situation. And the worse part was, as much as I wanted to just ignore the pettiness that it seemed to me to be, I couldn't get away from it! I let each of the kids attend one end of the year function with their friends (different birthday parties, play groups, etc.). So each time I would go (and usually the parent stays, as transportation is such an ordeal and normally these groups get really rowdy!), I would be the one English-speaking mom standing there with the group of other moms all kind of smiling and nodding, slightly bowing, and only being able to speak with the few who knew Chinese. NOT my favorite thing! Kind of made me crave some good ole' Tex Mex (my comfort food when I need a taste of "home"!)
So enough about cultural differences....Back to our regular routine stuff! Kevin did make it home from his trip with the sophomore high school students. He had a fantastic time, really bonded with the kids, and saw a beautiful part of the country that we all plan on going back to next year during spring break. We were all so happy to have him home! But I must confess, there's something about having Dad come back home that makes everyone get higher maintenance than they were before. I'm thinking that maybe we were all just prepared for his absence, so all the kids were geared up for it and trying to be super-helpful. But it seemed that as soon as he got back, we returned to our higher-need state, with kids being more demanding, less helpful or independent, more conflicts to referee. I think it kind of made Kevin feel badly about going, but I assured him that it was only when he returned that the winds of change toward more difficult children had emerged! :)
We celebrated Noah's 4th birthday. I am totally embarrassed to admit this, but he actually got to celebrate for 2 days, because his mom is pretty much losing her mind! On Sunday, the 2nd, we did a full day of celebrating--letting him pick his favorite meals, opening presents, eating cupcakes--the works. After we put the kids to bed that night, Kevin called his parents, who wondered why we'd celebrated on the 2nd when his birthday is actually on the 3rd! It wasn't until then that it hit me that we (or really, I!) was a day early!!! I sat on the couch shaking my head in disbelief for about 5 minutes, trying to decide if I should be laughing or crying, and trying to decide if I should fess up to him and the other kids or not! (We finally decided to do so; Noah couldn't have cared less as I already had cupcakes to bring in to his classmates on the second day, he was just disappointed that we didn't get to celebrate for the entire week.) 
Hudson had a Kindergarten graduation ceremony at his school that was really sweet. He is so excited to be moving up to the elementary wing of the school next year and will get to have recess with Eli! We hosted a graduation party for a family who has a senior about to head back to the US. It was sweet time to see them off and get to say goodbye for the summer to so many in the community who head different directions. (The international school teachers all spend every other summer in the US as part of their contract.) We've also been taking advantage of the warm weather that has not grown totally stifling yet by trying to get out and explore as much as we can. Kevin's been playing baseball and soccer in the courtyard with the kids and we've been riding bikes to the small pond that is in the community not too far from our home. In fact, when we were there yesterday, a small dog found us, and has not let us get away yet. The dog followed the kids (even though we wouldn't let them pet it, give it food or water or any other sort of attention) all the way home (about a mile and a half). And this dog has little legs! She then waited outside our apartment while we put bikes away and followed us to the waffle and coffee shop that just opened in our community for lunch. She sat outside (after being shooed out the door from the owner, who was afraid of dogs) and waited for over an hour while we ate, then followed us home and was either out in our courtyard or riding the elevator up to our 10th floor apartment the remainder of the afternoon! And THEN, she ran alongside our bikes (we tried leaving home at different times even to throw her off) for about 2-3 miles through crazy traffic and intersections to the supermarket area where we were meeting friends for dinner. Again, waiting outside the restaurant for over an hour, and even passing by several others who were trying to coax her into joining them by using food or their own kids! It was remarkable. Oh, and she of course followed us back home to go lay down in our bushes outside our home. I have yet to see if she is still there this morning, but Kevin and I talked after we got the kids in bed last night and we're thinking there's a chance that our family has adopted (or should I say, has been adopted). We'll see what today holds!!!
