Herding cats

It’s official. No further research or attempts are required.

Trying to get 9 very excited little girls to sit together on a couch for the length of time it takes to get a picture - which given the number of cameras in the room was actually a considerable length of time – is the equivalent to herding cats on … speed… at night… armed only with a kazoo. It is an impossible task. There is no way to successfully accomplish it, so it’s best to take what you can get in such endeavors. Hence, here is the best picture available from the Chinese New Year celebration.

In truth, if I had the space, and the patience, it’s actually quite hilarious to see all of the attempted pictures in succession. Nothing spells hilarity like 12 adults trying to get 9 little girls to sit still… and smile… for a picture, especially when said little girls are dressed in rather slippery silk and seem to slink down the couch as soon as released. Ah well, no one said parenting would be easy.

Despite the rather ill-conceived picture adventure, a good time was had by all at the first (hopefully annual) celebration with friends from the adoption community. The girls were adorable decked out in their traditional gear, and the wattage from the beaming parents could have powered a whole city for a month. We were treated to some really good food from the Northern Han (a wonderful suggestion from Valerie) and a wonderful song in Mandarin from Allie (who put on a stellar performance of a song she learned in her Mandarin class). The girls all whooped in up and seemed to enjoy the barely contained chaos of 9 little girls feeding of each others excitement.

The only hiccup of the evening for us was when Kiyomi had her first real attack of stranger anxiety. Emerging from her Maru-Maru tent – temporarily set up in the living room for the girls to play in – and seeing neither Kohji nor I in the room sent her into a wee bit of a tailspin, and she made darn sure we were close at hand for the rest of the evening. She seems to have started into a bit of a separation anxiety phase, with a mommy preference. I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t music to my ears given all the horror stories regarding attachment and bonding that you hear about during the adoption process (that and a damn undergrad paper on maternal deprivation)! For the moment, anyway, she only shows mild signs of stranger anxiety and is usually pretty quick to get over them, so we’re not too fussed about it.

The week after the party, the whole fan-damily headed out to the wilds of BC for a week of skiing at Silverstar Mountain Resort. While we had been up to Le Massif for a weekend earlier in February, Silverstar was more or less our inaugural attempt at a ski vacation. We went with a group of friends, so Kohji and I each had people to ski with when we traded off skiing half days, and in the end, it worked out well. The first couple of days were a little tough (not helped by about 10 cms of fresh powder and our luggage getting waylaid for half a day), with each of us kinda itchin’ to hit the slopes, but all in all skiing half days worked out reasonably well. Kiyomi had a great time hanging out with her buddy Ella, and pretty much happily followed her around the condo most of the time. When she wasn’t shadowing Ella, she turned everyone in the room into her personal readers. By the end of the week, it’s safe to say that not a single one of the adults really cared where the heck Maisy was!

Upon returning to Ottawa, we were all promptly hit with a lovely little flu. In one of those wonderful parenting moments, we discovered that Kiyomi had the flu when she threw up all over her dinner (and her dad). Sure, she was crying, and tired and cranky, but we chalked it up to jetlag and hunger because she seemed to stop her crying long enough to take a bite. That was, of course, until said bites of dinner (and of her mid-afternoon snack) came right back up again. It wasn’t until a couple days later, when Kohji was laying on the kitchen floor clutching a bucket and I was popping in a video for Kiyomi at 10 am because I couldn’t sit up long enough to read her a book without feeling nauseous that it dawned on us, hey, maybe she had the flu? Ah, proud parenting moments indeed.

Despite our parenting ineptitude, Kiyomi seems to be toddling along quite well, picking up new tricks and skills all the time. Her comprehension is pretty impressive now. You can ask her to do things, and she will actually do them. I know, I know, this is a very short lived stage, and pretty soon, she'll be ignorning me entirely. However, for the moment, I never tire of watching her toddle to the kitchen, open the cupboard and throw something in the trash on command. It's reached a point where we'll have to start watching what we say though, especially given her latest pronouncments. I'm not sure where she learned it (I swear!), but she seems to have started saying "ash hoo" over and over again. Not sure if it is indeed what it sounds like, but if it is, it means we've been baaaad parents, yet again!

Well, that’s probably more than enough info about this little family for one post. The parting shot tonight is proof positive that Kiyomi will be a skier! Good night from Ottawa.