When Kaia started daycare four blocks away when she was about 17 months old, she started showing a clear preference for her English kid songs versus her Chinese ones. Oftentimes, when I’d try to play the Chinese ones or sing them to her, she’d protest and demand “Wheels!” She did have one exception, though: She loved it when I sang the chorus for “Lao Shu Ai Da Mi” or “Mouse loves Big Rice.” That is technically not a Chinese nursery song, but apparently a song that is often used to teach people Chinese easily; the words are very straightforward, the meaning is cute, and the tune is catchy. I learned it during my second year of Mandarin in college.

Since September, Kaia has been in a Mandarin immersion 3K, so she’s had half English, half Chinese instruction. I’m still not clear exactly how much Chinese is spoken, taught, or emphasized, as sometimes the teaching can seem like a black hole here. We definitely do not have the same level of updates at this current school versus our last, but it’s hard to blame them given they are stretched thin here (and it’s publicly funded). But since January, they’ve been emphasizing and singing a lot of Chinese New Year songs, so Kaia’s been getting really into all her Chinese songs. She will sing them at home. She will ask me to play them. And she will even take out her Bao Bao Chinese song book and play the songs and sing along on her own, even ones she used to reject, like “Xiao Yanzi,” or “Little Swallow.” That’s honestly not my favorite song since it has a pretty sad tune, but it really made me so happy the other day when I saw her singing along to the songs in her Bao Bao book, completely on her own and without prompting. I couldn’t help but beam and see my sweet bilingual baby embrace her second language.