Hola!

A few weeks back, Dad got an email from a friend, asking where I attend daycare. Turns out that I've mentioned daycare a few times on this site, but I've never actually said where I go. And it seems that some people care (OK, ONE person cares).



So here's the scoop. Since last October, I've been spending my weekdays at EuropaKids International Preschool in glamorous Burien, Wash. Here are just a couple of photos, one of my classroom, and one of our playground.




It's a really cool place that uses full immersion to teach kids foreign languages. Me? I'm in the Spanish/Chinese toddler class, so my teachers speak nothing but - you guessed it - Spanish and Mandarin Chinese.

Does this mean that Mom and Dad are crazy, overbearing parents who want me to be fluent in three languages by the age of 6, graduate college at 10, discover cold fusion at 13 and take over Microsoft, KFC and Wayne Enterprises at 18? Possibly. But more likely, they figured that if they were going to shell out entirely too much money for daycare, I may as well go someplace where I'll learn something in the process.

And I've certainly been learning. On top of the language immersion, we have a curriculum that's a scaled-back version of what the preschoolers learn. I'm not saying I'm ready to write a dissertation for a Ph.D., but I'm at least learning my ABCs. We also went on a fun field trip to the Pacific Science Center just a few weeks after I started going there. Here we are, ready to learn!

I'm the tiny one on the left.

But the language aspect is the interesting part. Like any toddler, my brain is like a gigantic sponge, ready to soak up anything it can, so I'm picking up quite a bit of Spanish and Chinese. In fact, one of my first words, after "Mama" and "Daddy," was "gracias." Mom and Dad often hear me as I wander around the house, muttering under my breath in broken Chinese. And half the time, if you ask me to say yes, I'll shout out "Si!"



Is it utterly confusing? Of course. But is it utterly adorable? Si!

Now, part of the reason Mom and Dad chose EuropaKids for me is that Burien was located smack dab between West Seattle (where we lived when I started going there) and SeaTac, where Dad works. Thus, it was nice and easy for him to drop me off on the way to work and pick me up on the way home. With us living quite a bit further north now, it probably might have made sense to choose a daycare provider closer to our house, but they've been so impressed by it over the past 10 months that they don't plan on switching unless it's absolutely necessary.

You can't tell from this photo, but kids do actually enjoy this place.

I look like I was just told my car was stolen.

But Mom and Dad do have one minor quibble. A few months back, I got a little too messy during arts and crafts, so the teachers had to put me in a new outfit. A certain shirt had been put in the lost and found, and they mistakenly thought it was mine, so they put it on me. Imagine Mom and Dad's surprise when they picked me up that day and I was wearing this monstrosity...



Yikes!

But other than that one hiccup, Mom and Dad are more than satisfied with EuropaKids. How much to they like the place? Well, they've already enrolled my little sister-to-be in the infant class there. I can't wait - in a couple of years, the two of us will be able to talk behind our parents' backs, right to their faces.
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