Mandarin Madness

After lots of chatting, wishing and postponing, Katy+I have finally helped put together a little playgroup for Putonghua speakers so that our little ones can have more of an environment for learning and playing in Mandarin! We started last month at Annie and Christopher's boat at the Marina Club then we had a session at Heather and Joshua's (where Katy snagged her hand in the lift) but we had to postpone our hosting turn because Katy and I had a cold. So last week we finally had our Putonghua speaking friends over. It was a blast! We're so happy to have found a wonderful group of native Mandarin speakers and international babies.

This is Christopher and Annie.
Christopher is only a few days younger than Katy. It always takes Katy a while to warm up to a group of people and the kids don't play together in large groups as well as they do in twosomes or threesomes, but Katy was giving Christopher hugs by the end of our playdate last week. I'm hoping they will become good friends since they are so close in age and will hopefully speak a lot of Mandarin together.
Evelyn's big sister came along too and she was such a wonderful model of a big sister! She took care of her baby sister so well. She attends Singapore International School and is fluent in Mandarin and English. If we lived on Hong Kong Island, we would want to send Katy to Singapore International School because they have a great reputation and a great Mandarin language programme. Other international schools offer only one hour a day at most.
Eve's Mama is Carol. We are going to Carol and Eve's place for our putonghua playdate this week.
And here is Joshy. He is the sweetest little speedy gonzales. He is very lucky because his Mama and Daddy speak Mandarin together at home. Joshy is also in our other babygroup with Ellie, Sam, Pia and Izzie.
Dada came home a little early so caught the kids at the end of dinner. For some reason, Saga took an instant liking to him and wanted him to hold her and play with her the whole time. Saga is 5 months older than Katy.
Of course, Jo Jo was there as well and Katy wanted to play with him the most. Jo Jo also has a special liking for Uncle Rick and wants him to hold him all the time too. Must be Dada's soap!
Katy really would love to have a little baby to look after. Jo Jo obliged by letting Katy feed him.
Saga loved Uncle Rick to play the "where's your nose" game.
After everyone else had left, Jo Jo decided to try on Katy's high heels for size while Katy had her bath!