Alice has been planning for Chinese Day for at least a week. It is the day her daycare celebrates Chinese New Year by having the kids make dragons and ordering Chinese take-out for lunch. This year was extra special because fashionista Alice had planned her outfit in advance. At some point, she had decided the brightly colored dress with sparkles from her dress up box (where I put any dress we receive that is too impractical for actual use) was her "Chinese dress" and she was so excited to wear it on Chinese Day. It is a summer sundress, but I just had her put a cardigan on top and pink leggings underneath to winterize it. We even practiced the outfit in advance to make sure everything fit and didn't look too ridiculous. Then, over the weekend, as Chinese Day drew closer, we were killing time in Simon's room and our little Pandora asked, "What's in that box?" It held a bunch of hand-me-down ribbons and hair bows from Zac's cousin Ella. Alice said, "Perfect! I can wear these for Chinese Day!" She selected one that didn't really match, but it was brightly colored, so it fit the theme, anyway. Then she noticed some hair bands that had ribbons attached, and wanted to wear them. I told her she didn't have enough hair for a proper ponytail yet. She said, "No problem. I can wear them on my wrists!" and put them on, declaring they were her "superpowers." It was soon time for supper, so I packed up all the other hair things and put the ones she wanted for Chinese Day on top of her dresser.
On Monday morning, she straggled out of bed, then grabbed her clothes, then wandered around distraught saying, "I can't find my superpowers!" I had completely forgotten what she was talking about, and I kept asking, "In your dream? Did you lose your superpowers in your dream?" She was was getting increasingly concerned over her disappeared superpowers until it finally dawned on me what she was talking about. I retrieved them from the dresser top, and disaster was averted for our Chinese-dress super hero. The only other bump that morning was that when it was time to put on shoes and head out the door, she was sad because she realized she didn't have any "Chinese shoes." Alas. At the last minute, I was able to find some black shoes with a little ruffle that somehow fit the bill (thank goodness for copious hand-me-downs, or this would be a perpetually disappointed little girl).
When I picked the kids up from daycare today, Ms. Georgiana, the head of the school, told me that Alice had told her that I had bought the dress for her in India while she was still in my belly. I told Ms. Georgiania it was a hand-me-down, but that Alice was a good storyteller.
Both kids said they liked the Chinese food and were happy to have paper dragons.
And I completely failed to take pictures of any of this.
