United Nations Day

PLEASE click to see this picture bigger. She's got the cutest little look on her face. Ha ha!

Sweet Pea's school doesn't celebrate your everyday, run-of-the-mill holidays; they substitute a set of their own. Their first big event of the year is the music program on United Nations Day, and their answer to kids dressing up for Halloween at school is instead to have the kids dress on United Nations Day in something traditional from their culture. That is how it came to be that today was the day on which Sweet Pea donned my childhood dirndl, sent to me by my godfather from Germany I don't know how many years ago. We've both been bursting with giggles waiting for her to get to wear this dress. I couldn't believe how perfectly it fit her when she tried it on recently, especially because I, who was a small child until age 12, wore this dress when I was a full year or two older than Sweet Pea is now. I keep thinking I wore it when I was 6, but it doesn't seem possible that she could be that much bigger than I was at age 4.

ANYWAY - it was a really fun day and we even got to penetrate the "inner sanctum" that is Sweet Pea's classroom (parents always drop off and pick up the kids at the door and are generally not invited into the classroom) for a potluck after the music program. The show was really really cute too. There were at least two classes of the little kids, though I think it might have been more like four, and then there were some older classes too. They sang about six songs, I think, and signed most of them as well. I videotaped the whole concert except for about 10 seconds when I turned off the camera in a panic because I didn't know where The Bug was. Turned out she was just on the other side of the lady next to me, but it was scary there for a second. At one point I looked down to check on The Bug and saw that she had taken the bigger kids' signing as an indication that she should pull out every sign she could think of, so while they sang and signed the words to their songs, The Bug signed "baby," "truck," "apple," "cat," and every other word she could think of for which she knows a sign. That totally cracked me up.

We had a great time in the classroom afterward during the potluck (we took potato pancakes and applesauce - Slipshod and I were up until 1:30 this morning cooking the pancakes), and then were invited to leave early because there were too many cars in the parking lot and the administrator wanted to be sure that the parents of the older kids would have somewhere to park when it was time to pick up their children. Ha ha!

I quipped a few times to fellow parents during the potluck that what with our broad cultural background, Sweet Pea might be able to wear outfits and bring food from a different culture every year without repeating. I think next year we'll go with Irish and make soda bread. But what is a traditional Irish outfit? I'm not buying her one of those dresses unless she actually takes up the dancing. You know what I'm talking about.

Guten tag!