Day 69: Don't Steal My Baby!

One thing about not understanding Korean and therefore never *really* knowing what's going on at your school is that sometimes you get wonderful surprises. I walked into work this morning all expecting to jump right into classes, but was told there's be no teaching this morning. Instead we'd have a half-day birthday party! They organized a big birthday celebration for 4 of our students who all have birthdays that are close together - Paul, Lina, Mandy, and Billy. So cool!

A big fuss was made over the birthday kids and the playroom had been transformed into a birthday party room with balloons and a big birthday sign and cake and goodies and all sorts of good stuff. The 4 birthday kids were also dressed up in costume - Paul was in a suit and the 3 girls were in these traditional Korean dresses and they all looked SO CUTE!!! They were parading themselves around the school showing off their fancy clothes and had the biggest smile on their faces. We all played games and watched videos and horsed around together having fun.

I made up another game today that the kids instantly loved - The 'Don't Steal My Baby' Game. I shoved a balloon under my shirt to make it look like I was pregnant and then rubbed my stomach exclaiming how much I 'love my baby' in this feminine motherly voice that made the kids giggle. Well the game became to chase me around the room and try to yank the balloon out from under my shirt. I would pretend to be frantic and frightened and would clutch my stomach screaming (still in the motherly voice) "Don't steal my baby!" Eventually one of them would get the balloon out and I'd pretend to be horrified and devestated. The kids ate it up like candy and laughed their asses off - this was the biggest hit by far since the introduction of 'The Claw'. They absolutely loved it! (and yes, I'm weird!)

We then had a bit of a 'formal' birthday celebration - each of the birthday kids had to stand and sing this song for the classes, and then several of the students would give them a present. It was so cute! Then it was lunch time - and we had quite the birthday feast today. There was bananas and strawberries, Korean rice cake, fried chicken, kimbok (sorta a Korean version of sushi) and a giant chocolate birthday cake. YUM! It was fun to sit and eat with all the kids and we all had such fun this morning! Gotta love birthday parties, eh? :-)