Goodbye Growing Giraffe

Yesterday Dao and his buddy Aidan had a small party to say goodbye to their teachers and their little growing-giraffe friends. It has been a great year for Dao. The teachers were so wonderful, especially Ms. Ester, Ms. Tam and Ms. Tiffany. Dao won’t get to speak Vietnamese with Ms. Tam anymore. This morning when I dropped him off, Ms. Tam said to him in Vietnamese, “Only two more days until you get to the upper class. You’ll have to be courage (dung cam len).” I hope that he would still get to see her often to practice his Vietnamese. As of now, his Vietnamese is stronger than his English and we would like to keep it that way.

When Dana and I dropped by yesterday, Dao switched to Vietnamese when he talked to us. Aidan’s mother was there as well so Ms. Ester introduced us to their new class, which called Ladybug (not sure why). The playground was right outside of the classroom so the two were running around up and down the slides having a good time. Maybe that’s the reason it called Ladybug. At this age, they don’t stand still. They were hopping around like two ladybugs.

Aidan is a couple months younger than Dao and he already has a little three-month brother. We still not know if Dao will have a little brother or sister yet. I am trying to tell him about his new sibling, but he doesn’t seem to register yet. We have been warned about jealousy between the siblings, but I think Dao will be good being an older brother. Yesterday, Aidan leaned over the stroller and gave his baby brother a kiss. It looked very assuring that Dao will also be a great big brother.