Leo, the runner.

Yes, sometimes this boy walks,too.

Kid's Dance Class

Leo and Laiyane take dance classes at the Alliance Francaise twice a week.
Photo 1: This year in Leo's pre-kindergarten class, the teacher was concerned about his concentration. Apparently, Leo would pay little attention to teacher's instructions. We are not worried about it, but we (more me than Simon, since he prefers Karate to dance for a boy) proposed Leo a contemporary dance class to boost up concentration, and have fun at the same time.

Here is Leo's super concentration moment. See? It works!! (This is Dance Composition No 1. Note: This movement repeats throughout the dance.)

Photo 2: Laiyane is no longer into ballerinas, but she enjoys this dance class. For those who didn't know Laiyane well up to the age of 4, she basically wouldn't wear anything else but ballerina dress day and night, summer and winter. By the age of 4, the dress got so tight on her, that I even had to patch the dress with similar fabric, so she wouldn't left without THE ONLY clothes on earth. (Yes, she had drawers filled with other pretty clothes.)

Photo 3: Beautiful Malagasy girl in her white ballerina dress. I found her so picture perfect. Come to Madagascar, anyone can be a professional photographers. There are just so many picture perfect scenes.

Photo 4: Leo's movement practice. Notice how he studies his movements in front of a mirror, while others run around and make noise? He looks so obsorbed in his thoughts, I wonder what he is thinking.

Our Growing Animal Friends

Our animal friends are definately growing in numbers at our place in Tamatave!

First was our dog, P'tite Fille. She was born during the last year's cyclone among 6 puppies. She loves to play with children, and thanks to her, Leo has gotten over his fear of dogs. He used to be afraid of dogs so much, we sometimes had to walk around the block to avoid neighbour's dogs. Now he pets and hugs the dog like a pro.

Then, joined the baby rabbits. The rabbits are from a local market, Bazar Kelly. We can find the rabbits on sale only before big festivities, like Christmas and New Year's. Against the rabbit seller's strong advice, "Buy those bigger ones! These ones are too small. They will never be ready even for next year's Christmas!!" we got the cuttest baby rabbits. Within a few months, they ate through not only carrots and cabbages, but literally the entire flower garden and shrubs around the house!!
Don't worry. They will still be there even after the next year's Christmas.

Only two weeks ago, I went to a Halal chicken store. I'm not a muslam, but with the big muslam population here, many meat stores are Halal. Unlike other days, the cashier asked me if i wanted to buy his live chicks. They were 6 days old, and stayed in his dark back store, with piled up boxes of who-knows-what's-in-them! It could be their future, for you-know-who's sake!! Gees.
I said, "humm. why not," and came home with 1 kg of frozen chicken breast to make chicken curry with little peas, 1 whole chicken for the roast, 4 chicken drumsticks to try out home-made shaken' bake, and the 3 beautiful chickiri-papiri-doos. They are so cute that they don't even look like birds(I am scared of birds.) They are like these soft and fluffy yellow blobs.

Laiyane's First Tooth and 10,000 Ariary

It was late at night of May 7, 2009.

When Simon and I came back home, the babysitter, Josianne told us that Laiyane's tooth fell out!

Laiyane is 6 1/2 years old, and most of her classmates already had their tooth fairy’s visits, it was only natural for her to get very anxious to loose her first tooth since the beginning of the school year. Josianne wraped the tooth with sewing thread, and pulled it out, with no fuss, no pain. As I was watching Laiyane sleeping that night, with her precious tooth under her pillow, I could not help but revisiting all the lovely milestones that she has set out so far. I remember her beautiful smile with her jewel like first tooth. Her first walk. The first ride on a little yellow toy car. The first day at school. I wanted her first fairy's visit to be extra special.

I don't remember my tooth fairy visit, perhaps it's not in Korean tradition (I should confirm this with my parents though...) but my Canadian born friends' told me about their experiences. Tooth fairy would come and leave little coins under the pillow.

In Madagascar, little coins worth nothing. Stores won't even take them, because you can't even buy a pack of chewing gum with them. For Laiyane, who doesn't know the value of money yet, I didn't want her to race to a store with her proud earned money, and face the cold reality. So the tooth fairy left a brand new 10,000 ariary bill (equivalent to about 6 dollars? enough to buy 2 packs of gums, and 2 packs of juice)

I waited for the morning as much as Laiyane did. The first discovery of tooth's fairy's visit! I heard Laiyane searching under her pillow, and little footsteps marching into our bedroom in hurry. Her eyes almost filled up with tears from disappointment, with her chocked up voice, she announced the sad news. "The fairy forgot to leave me money... there is just this paper in an envelope..." and she pulled out the bill.

What was I thinking? To Laiyane, the paper money was worthless. Just a piece of a paper, she called it. She has waited for the shiny coins. The "real" money, like in her storybooks...

I remember when I was little, on a new year’s day, families would give their little children money as part of the annual celebration. I was about Laiyane’s age, and I would go to a store, to exchange all my paper bills with the smallest coins possible (just because it fills up my pockets more.) Then I would speed-walk around the block admiring the clinking sound of coins, feeling so much grown up, and important, as if I was an adult already.