ni hao!

We began the first of our International Dinners tonight. I didn't prepare for it quite as much as I had intended to, but it went pretty well. Uncle Denny had volunteered to cook Chinese for us, so he made shrimp fried rice. I stopped to get egg rolls, chopsticks, fortune cookies, and an order of Chinese doughnuts on our way down to his house. Once there, we talked about Chinese facts (Dennis knew that "ni hao" means "hello"), Uncle Denny showed him a wok, and I printed some activities for him to color (thanks to Kristin for recommending enchantedlearning.com) and complete. When I handed him the papers, he chose the dot-to-dot outline of China to do first. He likes the flag (it is mostly red) and already knew that the giant panda is from China. He even corrected me when I told him pandas live there ("Mommy, do you mean GIANT pandas?"). He also told me they weren't just black and white but could be red as well. He colored a bit of the panda page and saved the flag to color later. When I handed him the page on how to write Chinese numbers, he nodded and began counting in Chinese. Kudos to Nick Jr television! His panda knowledge is from Diego and his Chinese info came from Ni Hao Kai Lan (I like that there aren't commercials on that channel as well!).

Uncle Denny showed him where China is on the globe and looked up pictures of the Great Wall of China to show him. He told him about Chinese New Year and how their calendar is very different (and I happened to know that this is the year of the rabbit). He learned about rice and chopsticks, and he ate some of everything (though we had to work hard to remind him that he does indeed like shrimp). I'm very pleased with how it all went. He was pretty interested much of the time (and took some breaks to play with his construction set), and he loved watching Uncle Denny cook. He wanted to help so much!

This was a big day for us. We went to the pancake breakfast at church this morning after Dennis had accompanied David on some errands. They had attempted to visit David's paramedic friends so that Dennis could get the ambulance tour he's been asking for, but they had to go out on a call and the truck wasn't there. After the brunch, Dennis and I rode with his Grandma to his cousin Jeff's 2nd birthday party. There were lots of kids and toys to play with, and I had to drag Dennis away crying when it was time to go. He napped just a little on the way back and was ready to party with Uncle Denny tonight. He told Uncle Denny "my birthday is coming up soon and you are invited to my police party--be sure to bring presents!". He's told me today he wants a CARS birthday party (like Jeff had), a construction party (what he's said for the past month), and a police party. I'm going to give it a couple more weeks to see what he wants most and to figure our a location.

I can't wait for our next International Dinner! It isn't planned, but I have some ideas. What a fun way to introduce other cultures!