ダメ!

title (dame) literally means "not allowed, no good," etc.

my kids were quite cute for the remainder of the week, despite being emotionally scarred by my お化け shenanigans:

except that they're starting to get sick again. ARMED WITH VITAMIN C THIS TIME Y'ALL.

Friday was a big day; literally, because about 36 kids came in for English time (getting them to focus was a barrel of lulz), but most were there in the morning so they could get a chance to play in the 迷路 (maze) that the fearless teachers constructed out of about 50 cardboard boxes:

The things we do for these children, really...

This brings flashbacks to that one maze they had at Health World; if you're a Chi town 'burb kid you should know this place well.

It was actually a bit of a struggle to get all the boxes to not collapse, so we (somewhat reluctantly) enlisted the help of the babies to reinforce the boxes with tape. They immediately jumped on this (bless kids, they love helping out grown ups) and it was kind of cute, a lot of the boys went all mechanic on me and would lie on their backs, halfway in a box and hold out there hand and go "テープ(tape)" in this business-like tone. Presh.

And now for obligatory pictures of kids-in-maze (i literally ran around the exits and randomly stuck my camera in and pressed the shutter, I'm surprised this even worked):

Marie, my cuddly wuddly!! Seriously, she's getting her own post soon

Oops, a REALLY BIG kid seems to have gotten stuck ;)

So remember that cutie patootie rocking the side-ponytail in the first picture up there? Posting her again even if you do remember, because she's just too dang cute

CURLY HAIRED BABY. CURLY HAIRED BABY. CURLY HAIRED BABY.

Her name is Rena and besides radiating earth-crushing cute waves, she's hilarious. I actually titled this blog after an interesting little game that we played all day on Friday.

Me: れなちゃん! (her name, called to get her attention) いい、よ (good!)!!
Rena: (at first, completely serious) ダメ.(no)
Me: いい、よ!!
Rena: (starting to smile a little) ダメ.
Me:  いい、よ!!
Rena: (definitely laughing now) ダメ!!


Whenever I'd be walking around vacuuming or getting kids's sandals ready or secretly playing Words with Friends on my iPod (what?) and she'd be in the same room, this would happen. It got to the point where as soon as I'd walk in she'd scream ダメ!!!! and then burst into laughter. Idk, guess you had to be there?

Anyway, she's sassy, talks back at you (but not in that way, at least not yet, she's still precious for now) and will just look up at you with a vacant expression, and then her chubby little face will explode in laughs and you just wanna pick her up and snuggle the cute out of her, only to put it back in because YOU CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT IT.

I'm gonna need a lot of child-sized luggage for my return to the states...


Hope you're all well! And I shall be obsessively checking my email for the next 3 months (Pottrollmore eheheheh)

ホリー先生