Proof that some experiences take awhile to grab hold of the imagination, the kids have been obsessed with Chinese New Year during the last few days. Yesterday morning, Bud had the clever idea to turn our two play tunnels into a Chinese dragon for the New Year's dragon dance. We picked it up and paraded around until Sis came up with the great idea to decorate it. She worked on the face while Bud made body art. I worked on back scales and tail. Soon, using teamwork (one of our favorite words), we were dancing around the living room first singing "We are the Dragons" to Laurie Berkner's "We are the Dinosaurs," and then to our Chinese music CDs.
Later in the day, Bud remembered the fan dance performed in Ma and Gong's New York New Year's Gala DVD. And so he wanted to make fans. We folded numerous colorful sheets of paper into fans and taped them together to make a huge fan. Soon, Bud could fold fans himself and so we made two big fans for him to dance. Sis also got two fans. And soon there was dancing, actually very similar to Chinese fan dancing. Except Bud and Sis couldn't make their faces change color as the man with the masks had done on the show.
Then, this morning before school (which has an afternoon early dismissal for snow which doesn't affect us), they decided to make Chinese New Year dinner. They flipped over an empty cardboard box to use as an altar then set the table with "Chinese pizza" and "Chinese cake" (just renaming our usual stock of plastic and wooden food), filling the space with dishes and treats. Then, amazingly, they called the ancestors or, because I don't think they understand "ancestors," in this case relatives. "Pop! Gommie!" they cried. And then they imagined they appeared for dinner. Happy New Year!
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