happy chinese new year

ok, i admit i was a proud bragging mama today. maya's pre-k teacher asked me a few days ago if alumnus miles would come and talk to the pre-k kids about chinese new year today. he agreed, but at 9 this morning, just after SPONGE BOB SQUARE PANTS, i looked at my very runny-nosed and goofy missing tooth child and wondered how it would go down. he packed up a lantern made in kindergarten with the fabulous ms. chang, a lion dancer costume we splurged for a few years back, a picture book about a girl in china and her pet dragon, two pop tarts for breakfast and a tennis racket for a park date later, and we were off.

at the preschool miles sat calmly on a little blue chair in front of the gang, and then proceeded to tell (in detail, for 20 minutes) about the origin of the red lanterns and lion dancers, and the story of the chinese zodiac. some of the things he said didn't really sound like him ("the elephant was approaching at a very tiny speed") and i realized he had learned this all in mandarin and this was how it translated to english. the 3-5 year olds were pretty rapt listening to these crazy stories of racing animals, crop destroying dragons, and evil spirits scared of their reflection in the lion's mirror.

maya was the lovely assistant who held the lion's tail. one of my favorite parts of the presentation was when little slade started playing some quiet harmonica to accompany miles' quite lengthy narratives.

awww. maybe miles will be a preschool teacher some day, if not a super spy, comic book artist, famous soccer player or singer as good as michael jackson. the fact that he learned this stuff in another language seemed pretty cool.