Well, over a month and I've been promising to get Christmas pictures posted so thought I'd better get to it before we're into February! Christmas was of course lots of fun as Maiya experienced her first Canadian Christmas. She especially loved the gifts wrapped in gift bags with lots of tissue paper, as her favourite activity was to rip the tissue paper into progressively smaller and smaller pieces. She'd hand each piece to me, until she was down to a tiny little piece, and then put it in her mouth. Who needs presents!!
We spent most of the holidays back in Brussels visiting with grandparents and other family & friends. By the holidays crawling was still the preferred mode of getting around, but she was walking more and more with all the encouragement she was getting! We were so tired out from the Christmas holidays that by the time we returned home on New Year's Eve, we decided to just have a relaxing night at home (translation....we're old and tired and had neglected to make any plans!!).
We started Maiya's visits to her first daycare in January, as that was to be my return to work date. I'm off until after March Break now so that I can continue to work on my research for the Masters, and Maiya can get used to daycare. We had some fairly serious issues from the first day I took her to her daycare (all I'll say is, being escorted to the door by two plain-clothes police officers - or so they said - was a little unnerving for our first day!) Needless to say, it was a very stressful week, but we were very fortunate to find a daycare not far from my work that was able to squeeze us in, and we made the switch. She loves her new daycare and I think she's gained 5lbs. already from all the good food they serve! She's brought home her first artistic masterpiece entitled "Snow" (black construction paper with some little white crayon marks on it) so we're sure she's destined for greatness in the art world now as well. Her class is now gearing up for the big Valentine's Day party on Feb. 14th, so it will be interesting to see what that entails with 7 little 12-14 month olds running around!
In January, Maiya & I were able to get together for brunch with a few of the families who also adopted around the same time as us. It had been a few months since we'd been together so it was fun to see how big all the kids are getting. They are all growing and thriving in their new homes and it's great to be able to maintain such great connections to Vietnam with them. We will be celebrating Tet, the Vietnamese New Year in February. It is based on the lunar calendar, the same as the Chinese New Year. This year will be the Year of the Rat. The Families With Children From Vietnam group will be celebrating together downtown on Feb. 23rd, and we're hoping to have our own family celebration by visiting the new Vietnamese restaurant that opened down the street from us.
At 14 months, Maiya is going strong. We think she must be close to the 20lb mark now, and seems to be getting taller every day. She has 6 teeth so far, and I think a few more are working their way in. She walks/runs everywhere, although she has discovered how to slide backwards on the hardwood floors so every once in a while I find her sliding past me, bum first with a big grin on her face. She has learned a few words in sign language, and signs for more, milk, all done, fan and light. She's not saying many words yet, but is "talking" non-stop, so I have a feeling it won't be too long before she's talking our ears off. She has a great sense of humour and keeps us laughing (although she has started to assert her independence a little more so we may see some of the "terrible twos" a little early!).
Hopefully it won't take me as long to post next time, so keep checking in February for more news!
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