one week-end

I've had the loveliest weekend in a long time. First of all, my maple address file boxes arrived and they are just beautiful, every one of them! So on Friday with Adelaide away happily - perhaps a little too happily - with her grandma and grandpa for the day, I was able to put my first batch of address files together. It felt so strange yet wonderful and familiar to be able to do this again. I haven't forgotten and my fingers can still fly! I have also found that now that I'm a mama I have even more love and care to put into my work. It feels like my heart is even bigger when it comes to everything in life now. And this is very good.

Whenever I am out and about I always keep a look out for storage solutions - because in my experience, you can never have enough storage solutions. I found these two big vintage candy jars at a Thrift shop and had to bring them home with me. Their bright red lids are so happy to me and I am now using them to store all of my +30 card packs, which I made dozens and dozens of up as well so they would all be ready to go to their new homes. It is my hope that they soon be filled with the names and details of people who are loved.

I grew up not celebrating celebrations such as Birthdays, Halloween, or Christmas, and so now it is important to me for Adelaide to have childhood joys in such events. A few of my wonderful neighbours and I planned an easter brunch and egg hunt for Sunday. Of course, it poured rain all day like never before, but it suprisingly ended up being so lovely to head with our brightly coloured children into the quiet damp still of the forest and find treasures all together. This is one of the only photos I took, for it was so wet I was actually frightened for my camera! But to me it somehow captures a certain happiness that we felt all together in the forest on this wet day.

I love my camera (a Nikon D50) but I don't make a habit of bringing it along everywhere. However, I really wish that I did the other day as we took Addie for her very first Dim Sum! It was so much fun - she loved it! Despite me being not a huge fan of Dim Sum - I eat mostly vegetarian, and I also unfortunately find that a lot of Dim Sum doesn't sit well in my belly - I can't wait to take her again. 

I really want to involve more Chinese culture into Adelaide's world, but being a white girl it feels a little - contrived on my part. I'm not completely ignorant, for I grew up in Vancouver and it has a huge Asian population which has very much influenced what this city has and will become. We have a lot of Asian friends and neighbours, and Addie has many little Chinese friends and even more little bi-racial friends around our neighbourhood to spend time with. However, Adelaide's dad Charles is really laid back, and he's not the type to plan out cultural events or drag his daughter to Chinese School (he despised and loathed it). Charles also works a lot and so Addie spends the majority of her time with just plain old me. Her yehyeh and mahmah live far away so she won't really be able to learn from them either. I just hope that Addie doesn't grow up and feel alienated from such a big part of her heritage. 

Do you have any experience for such a matter? Did you grow up the child of Caucasian and Asian parents? Do you have children who are part Asian too? Do you have any thoughts on what else can I do - besides reading books like Yum Yum Dim Sum to her, and taking her Aberdeen and to yummy restaurants like Peaceful Noodle every so often? Are you aware of any Cantonese speaking programs for little children in the Vancouver area? Or do you know of anyother Chinese-type storybooks to recommend? Any thoughts or suggestions you have I would greatly appreciate.