quiet living in the tenement.

Are you surprised by the subject heading? Me too. Xiaoling's family arrived on Friday night and
after a brief chaotic settling in period that made me exceptionally "queen of my castle" cranky, things seem to have reached their equilibrium. While there have been some moments of hiding out at work, I do that anyways, so it's nothing out of the usual. I am still a little miffed that there were no formal introductions but so it goes. I have had absolutely zero interactions with the husband-- clearly he saw me in my primitive pre-coffee stupor and decided to steer clear for his entire journey. The kid is a completely different story.

She is totally quiet-- she has been watching tv since before I got home from work and I haven't heard a peep. Kid is stealthy and clearly used to being on her own. I don't think she speaks very much, if any English, and frankly I was unnerved that there is no way for me to really communicate with her because I really miss being around kids and she's going to be here for a while even if I didn't like kids. But we made a breakthrough last night, when she and her little friend encountered me on the swings at our complex's playground. Before that she had only stared at me with really wide eyes, but she seemed to appreciate that I was out to play too and slightly less of some strange person lurking around the apartment periodically bringing large piles of dishes from my bedroom.

She still stares at me with huge eyes-- this morning I had the yearning for cinnamon toast, so she watched me get out the toaster and go through the whole process. I had no idea I was so interesting (I know, don't let it go to your head Mel, you're not). The funny part was that after I retreated to my room with food and coffee I hear this little quiet knock on my door. In comes my little buddy with my toaster. So we are taking baby steps.

UPDATE: Kid, after much ponderance on the issue, chose to identify herself as Coco. She is making a shit-ton of noise so I have to rescind all of my "she is so perfectly quiet" comments. And it is making me cranky because this is grad student housing, not "make a shit-ton of noise" housing. Ugh. I am the worst kind of spoiled.

UPDATE DEUX: We are speaking English after all. woohoo!