It took awhile, but mercifully, spring has finally arrived. I tell ya, another sleet encrusted day, and I was going to pack up and move to Florida… and I don’t particularly like Florida. Needless to day, we’ve been luxuriating in the warmer climes and thanking the weather gods profusely.
Things have been toddling alone nicely in our little home. Kiyomi’s favourite word remains “ousiiie”, which is toddler speak for outside. She loves being able to get out of the house and has spent many a happy hour at the park, walking up and down the street with her toy stoller or scribbling all over everything with sidewalk chalk.
We've all been loving the nicer weather.
Winter is always great, but having a kid means loving summer. Part of it certainly is that you don't ha
ve to fight over hats, boots, mites. But, the bigger part of it is that who have this massive playroom addition to your house known as the outside. It doesn't matter how many toys you buy or how creative you are, there's just no way to make the indoors nearly as interesting or fun as the outside. Let's face it, you can't compete with pigeons, squirrels and ants. The nicer weather brings all these new toys gallavanting out and lets you watch them for hours.We are, however, developing barrette wars. You may remember the hat wars of a few months back? I, foolishly, thought I had won that particular war. W
ell, I’ve learned that all I won was a minor skirmish compared to the battle of the barrette. It would seem Kiyomi’s hair is finally thickening and getting long enough that part of it falls across her face or pokes her in the eye. Now, there isn’t enough there to take scissors to (and in fact given how thin her hair is, I’m loath to cut any away). The solution, to my mind, was a barret. The problem? It doesn’t matter how many times you put it in, how often or enthusiastically you exclaim how pretty it is, or what kind of bomb proof barrette you invest in, this child will figure out a way to yank it off. Short of glueing the thing on her head, I’ve exhausted all ideas. It’s never been in there for more than 5 minutes. 
Nana and Zufu came for a visit. This was the first time Zufu spent time with Kiyomi on her home turf, and it would seem she's got him wrapped pretty good around those chubby little fingers. Those of you out there who know my dad will not in the slightest be suprised to hear that on the first time they went out for a walk, Kiyomi came back with a great big Haagen Daz ice cream bar the size of her head. The 2nd time she took Zufu for a walk, they wound up standing on a busy street corner waving an Ottawa Senators flag (they're in the playoffs) and waving at the cars who honked in response. I'm fearful that the next time they "go for a walk", they're going to come home with a puppy.
Our big trip for this month was a visit to the US midwest to wander the “windy city”. Kohji had a conference, so Kiyomi and I tagged along for the free accomadations at a fancy hotel. The trip was great, although a little exhausting – Kiyomi and I went to the aquarium, the zoo, the Art Institute, the Field Museum, the Children’s Museum 
and we walked a lot. The architecture is amazing, and it's a really easy walking city. Given her adoration of fish (or ‘sishi’ as she says), we imagined that Kiyomi would go apoplectic at the Shedd Aquarium, but she was only mildly interested. What really got her going was Sue the T-Rex and the elephants at the Field Museum, both in the main lobby. Oh sure, there were all sorts of other animals throughout the galleries, which we dutifully visited, but really, we could have spent our entire time at the museum running between the elephants and Sue and she would have been equally as happy.
We also spent a great deal of time wandering the halls of the hotel, which was rather entertaining as there was a lot of empty hallways on the conference room floors that we could happily explore. Kiyomi even got a taste of some of the 
music for which the city is famous. We peeked in at a reception in one of the conference rooms where a band was stationed right by the door. You should have seen her bopping to a jazzy version of Stevie Wonder’s “Superstitious”. There were all these people dressed up coming and going, and here’s a toddler with a runny-nose standing out front just givin’ her, with a woman (that would be me) laughing herself to tears on the floor beside her. I’m sure it was quite the sight for the reception guests.It was just Kiyomi and I for the most part, as Kohji was pretty busy with shmoozing commitments so I was really grateful that Kiyomi seemed to really enjoy being a tourist. We went out to dinners, wandered the hotel or museums. Of course, I only went to family restaurant type places, but not a single meltdown from her or temper tantrum ...... that was until
we landed back in Ottawa and were trying to get off the plane. We were flying back without Kohji who stayed on in Chicago for another day for work stuff. Kiyomi had fallen alseep half way through the flight, and was not happy about being woken up to get off, and made sure the whole plane knew of her displeasure. She wailed through the terminal, she wailed in line at customs, she wailed while the customs officer was asking me whether I had a letter from my husband (apparently, you need a letter from the other parent if you're going to be crossing borders, which I didn't know), she wailed as I tried to heave the bags off the carousel one handed because she refused to be put down. She finally stopped wailing when we got to the car (thank god). This meant I didn't have time to use the washroom at the airport, so I was bursting by the time I got home. I got in the house, ran to the washroom. Kiyomi walked in the family room where she was promptly met by the cat who let out a bit of a blood curdling meow at the sight of Kiyomi. As a result Kiyomi leaped up and attempted to scramble up my lap – keep in mind, while this was going on, I was still using the facilities. Imagine if you will, sitting there, trying to get off the toilet, with a wailing toddler who refuses to be put down. I've learned that pulling up your pants is no mean feat with you have a toddler clinging to your leg with what can only be described as a death grip! I swear I almost sat down and started wailing myself (without pants on). It wasn't a pretty picture.Kiyomi’s vocabulary just keeps growing. It's impossible to keep up with a listing of the new words as they seem to pop up daily. This week alone, it's ‘mappp’ and ‘amimal’. I think we have Dora to thank for thoses. Over the last couple of months or so, she has successfully jumped a handful of times. I concede, her vertical ain’t great – only a couple of centimeters – but let’s be honest here, mine’s not that much better. She can now go down a slide all by herself and climb into her stroller and wagon all on her own. Last week at playgroup, she clambered onto a riding toy and took off. This was a toy which she hadn’t even been able to touch feet to ground on when we first started going to the community center. She’s also started to join the toddler throng at baby library time and at playgroup, rather than hang back with me. Standing back watching her, I can’t help but see the little girl she’s growing into and marvel at how she is now starting to move into the world as her own person. It may only be a toddler mosh pit, but it’s still her place in it, not hers and mine. I guess these are the first of many “my baby’s growing up” moments.
The parting shot for tonight is one of those "like daddy, like daughter moments." Good night from Ottawa.
