Chinese New Year at School

During Chinese New Year, C-Pop and C-Mum stopped by C-bao's school to share with her class some of the cultural background behind Chinese New Year traditions.

To mark the occasion, C-bao wore a purple qipao, or classic form-fitting traditional Chinese dress.

C-Pop read a book about the Chinese zodiac, sharing the story behind the great race ordained by the Emperor, and why the Cat and the Rat are enemies to this day.

Here are a couple of clips from the session.

C-Mum made a traditional CNY fare -- dumplings, rice cake, oranges -- and brought it for the whole class to share. The red-bean paste rice cakes in particular were a big hit.

C-Mum also created an arts and crafts project, involving a do-it-yourself paper dragon, that occupied the class for a good hour-plus. The coloring and intricate cutting involved challenged the young 4-year-olds, and they were genuinely excited to be making a fairly real-looking dragon.

Finally -- and this was a stroke of genius on the part of C-Mum -- the C-folks brought red envelopes stuffed with chocolate coins, and little C-bao got to hand them out to the class. Talk about a dose of Santa power! C-bao's classmates fell all over themselves getting in line to get their chocolate coin. 

Holiday in NY

C-bao took her first trip to New York over the holidays. On one of the days, she stopped by C-Pop's office during its annual family holiday party.

"Daddy, why are his arms short?"

Replete with scarf decorating, magic shows, men on stilts and most importantly lots of snacks and desserts, C-bao had herself a good time.

"I want at least two snowflakes on my scarf!"

Below C-bao hammed it up with the resident snowman, after first picking up some balloon hats and other paraphernalia.

Chilling with Frosty

Sugar High

For C-bao's second official Halloween, she donned another princess outfit, and this time quite appropriately chose Ariel the strong-willed youngest daughter. 

Below the little munchkin poses for a pre-candy pic. 

"You realize I'm planning to fill this whole bucket, right Dad?"

This year, trick-or-treating appeared to be old hat. While last year's first outing involved some tentativeness, this year our little one had no hesitation whatsoever from going straight for the candy.

This feels way too empty right now

Indeed, the C-fam joined up with C-bao's classmate from her preschool and their whole family for the festivities, which only further enhanced C-bao's comfort level.

"See Dad, I told you I'm already done with that piece!"

By the end of the night, C-bao, who had managed to sneak more than a few pieces of candy into her mouth along the way, was in full sugar-crazed delirium. It took all of C-Pop and C-Mum's energies to wind the little one down.

"But I really CAN fly, Mum, just you watch me!"

 Of course, once she did, she immediately went straight into a bartering session with her older sister to see which pieces each would keep and which they would trade.