What Katy Rose Did Next: Happy 4th Birthday Naomi

Katy was invited to her first classmate birthday party yesterday. A little Japanese girl called Naomi, who also lives in DB. We've run into her family a few times before. It was interesting going to the party after our first parent-teacher meeting. Dada and I have made it our mission to really give Katy a proper opportunity to get into the Cantonese thing. There are now too many English speakers in Katy's class and she hangs out with them and is not developing sufficient Cantonese to progress properly in her schooling. Mama is also a little worried that Katy has not developed any strong bonds with any other kids in her class. Katy needs one on one playdates to really develop a proper friendship.

When Katy first arrived at the party, the older girls from her school yelled out "Katy" and leapt to hug her. This freaked Katy out at first.

But she enjoyed the first game, which was having a balloon tied to your leg and trying to burst the other kids' balloons. It was a funny version though because for this 3-5 age group, they just started crying if any kid caught them and tried to burst their balloon. So they all kept giving each other mercy pardons and moving on.

So it was really a game of running around giggling. A lovely little six year old girl called Savannah came and rescued Katy from one of the boys who wanted to burst her balloon. It was really sweet. So Katy made friends with Savannah and her friend Amelia. I really believe that at this age, Katy still needs help to make friends.

The kids' favourite game was Tug-O-War. They played it a couple of times. Katy really really enjoys it and gets quite competitive! Here she is with her two friends who she sits between in class - Sophia, who has a Mandarin-speaking mother and an Italian-speaking father, but who [you guessed it] speaks English with Katy [and her own brother!], and Hazel, who is American. So they just speak English all the time.

Katy was jubilant when her side won!

They got little flying things as a prize, and the kids loved this too.

Sophia really loves playing with Katy. I've told them they can only have playdates if they do them in Mandarin. I know this sounds ruthless (and Tiger Mom-ish) but Katy really has more than enough English playdates (Jonah, Callum, Ellie), and just needs so much encouragement to speak her other languages. She understands everything and she can speak, but only if prompted. This is what the teacher also says. So we need to work on giving her an environment that will inspire her to use her other languages and make them cool.