desh

Sidestepping the whole debate about what to call it[1], we went to the Lunar New Year parade and celebration on Argyle Street yesterday:


We left later than I wanted to--we didn't get out of the house until 11:45 a.m. and didn't get down to Argyle until 12:15 p.m. We put in our name at Immm Rice, but when it was only twenty-five minutes or so to the parade we decided that even if we did get in we wouldn't be able to eat in time, so we tried stopping in at a bakery for some buns. The first one we went to had a cash-only sign that had been hidden by the long line, so we had to duck our and search the rest of the street. sashagee spotted one on the way back run by an old Vietnamese man and got a couple buns for Laila and herself, and they ate them while we settled onto the side of the street to wait.

I wasn't expecting too many people to show up since it was -5°C with a biting wind, but the streets were still lined when the parade stepped off at 1:05 p.m. Laila had been complaining and wanting to go home for quite a while, but once the parade started all that fell away. She watched the lion dancers and the dragon puppets, watched the floats going on, and was very excited when one of the parade-walkers gave her a lollipop! She didn't complain once as we stood out in the cold, but we left a couple floats early so we could get into a restaurant. And a good thing too--we walked in, were immediately seated, and within ten minutes or so there was a giant line waiting for a seat. We ate--with a brief detour while Laila and I walked around outside because she was getting rowdy--and by the time we were done basically all the festivities had ended, so we just went home.

Next weekend is the parade in Chinatown, but we won't be able to go.

[1]: A few years ago there was a push to call it Lunar New Year instead of Chinese New Year, since more cultures than just China celebrate it. Of course now the problem is that e.g. the Islamic and Jewish calendars also have lunar new years since both calendars begin months on the new moon, so "Lunar New Year" is ambiguous.

Almost five! I can still remember when she was so small I would carry her in the crook of my arm while I was walking around the condo. Every parent says that, because it's true.

Laila is expressing more preferences and wants while also being more independent. On mornings when I get up and let sashagee sleep in, I go out with Laila and give her medicine, and I no longer just make her food and give her what she gets. I now ask her what she wants to eat for breakfast. And sure, the answer is always the same thing: "pickle AND cheese!", by which she means some pickles, a bit of cheese, some fruit (usually blueberries or strawberries), and toast with butter or jam. It's what she always wants, even when she wants something else--a couple times she's said e.g. waffles or eggs, and when I asked her, "You want eggs?" she'll respond with "Just pickles and cheese." Well, I can't blame her, since I have basically the same thing for breakfast every day too.

She's also getting more self-conscious. There's been a few times when she's tripped and fallen while running around the condo and she got so embarrassed that she immediately ran to her room and shut the door afterwards. It's not like we laugh at her or anything! We just ask her if she's okay, but she's grown-up enough to be embarrassed about it. And a few days ago, she had a coughing fit, looked up at me when she recovered, and said, "It's very frustrating!"

You're right, Laila, it is.

She's settled on her new interests and moved on from her old interests. A year ago, she was very into the Cars franchise and loved Lightning McQueen, but she hasn't wanted to watch Cars in months. A few months ago it was all Bluey all the time. Nowadays it's Hello Kitty and Friends whenever we give her the choice of what she wants to watch. She'll spend almost every free moment drawing and painting with the water markers and books we've gotten her, and painting with watercolors if we let her. The other thing she loves to do lately is have us read books to her, which has always been something she likes but it's more of an interest lately. She'll grab books herself and bring them over--her favorites lately are Sammy Spider's First Yom Kippur, Little Owl's Night, Challah for Shabbat Tonight, and You Are My Happy. I got her Sammy Spider's First Shabbat but she hasn't taken to it yet.

Unfortunately, tragedy has struck. When Laila was younger she had a habit of pulling her hair, but we had mostly managed to deter the behavior...until she spent a week in the hospital, which caused her enough anxiety that it started up again. sashagee saw how thin her hair was getting on one side and was worried she'd do permanent damage to her hair by pulling out too much of it, and so to deter further hair pulling, we gave her a haircut. A significant one:


Laila...doesn't like it. It has, however, helped stop her from pulling her hair--she'll reach for where she usually pulls and it's not there--as have my comments that if she keep pulling it we'll have to cut it even shorter. They're probably going to have to cut some of it for her upcoming surgery anyway, so it's not purely a deterrent measure. And we know that if she did give herself bald spots she'd be really upset about them when she got older, but seeing her look in the mirror and silent tears roll down her cheeks is really upsetting.

In happier news, she's fully become a fashionista. She no longer waits for us to pick out her clothes in the morning--if we wait too long, she'll go rummage through her drawers until she finds something she likes and change into it, all by herself! The only hurdles are that if she's wearing shorts as part of her pajama set she'll sometimes leave them on under her pants and, the bigger one, if we let her she would wear a half-dozen outfits throughout the day. She'll forget to roll up her sleeves when washing her hands, get the sleeves wet, and then go back to her room to change into a new shirt because she can't stand having wet sleeves. If we didn't stop her, she'd change her clothes a half-dozen times a day and sashagee would have to go laundry basically every single day.

I also make her carry her own food plate to the table. She may have issues focusing on things sometimes, but when it's her food, she can keep her mind on it. Though she does carry it at a very dangerous angle sometimes.

What other ways will she grow and change?