Family

It has become customary for us to not visit my side of the family during Thanksgiving and Christmas. We have traditionally spent them with my husband's side of the family until this year when we decided to spend Christmas at home with just the three of us. For reasons that I won't get into, my husband has decided that we should spend Thanksgiving and Christmas with his family and Chinese New Year with my family. So it was after Christmas when Scarlett and I went down to LA to visit my family for a short two-day visit. Aside from Chinese New Year, visiting my family has been more random and not always scheduled during particular times of the year. Scarlett has probably seen my family about 5-6 times in her life. Since Scarlett's daycare is shut-down between Christmas and New Year's, I decided to take Scarlett (hubby has to work) down to LA to see my family.

The visits almost always end up being the same: I usually look forward to going but it usually ends up being anti-climatic. There's a reason that I book the trip for only a few days. My parents work 7 days a week and there's usually not much for Scarlett to do there. This latest trip was no different. I want Scarlett to know my parents and brothers better but the only way to really hang out with my parents is to be at their liquor store. In order to maintain some consistency for Scarlett's sleeping/eating schedule, I try to stay at my parents' house. So we see my mom during the morning when she spends 2-3 hours cooking lunch and dinner for us. After lunch, she's off to the store. We get a glimpse of my dad in the morning before he leaves to open the store. They don't get home until midnight - way past our bedtime. My younger brother had to work so we didn't see much of him either. My older brother took some days off so he was around to hang out and lend us his car when necessary. My older brother doesn't exactly know how to play with little kids so Scarlett has no interest in him. That leaves Scarlett and myself in a big house with nothing for her to do. Since Scarlett is the only grandchild so far, she has no cousins to play with either. Thus, except for enjoying going up and down the stairs in my parents' house, Scarlett was bored, missed her dad, and couldn't wait to get home. We did visit my parents' store but there's only so much we can do there. Now that she knows about candy, she wanted to open and eat every candy she saw. So my mom bribed her with a container of M&M's and suddenly, Scarlett started liking and playing with my mom. My dad, on the other hand, tried to talk to her by speaking Spanish to her (because he knows that she learns Spanish at daycare) but she just clammed up and hid behind me. So two short days later, we're happy to be back home and back in time to go to a New Year's Eve party hosted by a mommy friend where Scarlett got to run around with 7 other 2-year-olds. I was both sad to leave LA so soon but glad at the same time because Scarlett and I were driving each other crazy with nothing to do at my parents' house. I'm already looking forward to going to LA again in Feb. for Chinese New Year but at least this time, all three of us will be down there.