Monday Dec 15
We babysat Emi today, but she’s awfully easy right now. It’s amazing how much her vocabulary has expanded just since October. And she’s pretty easy to understand too. She’s just fun. But toddlers are still tiring and we’re old.
My morning frustration was trying to order sufganiyot in Minneapolis for Friday. I wanted to talk to them to make sure they were truly sufganiyot and not just donuts decorated for Hannukah, but you can’t talk to a person, just an AI bot. The bot actually did a good job of answering my questions and placing my order except for one detail. I didn’t want the donuts until Friday and it just assumed I wanted them today. I got it to change it to Friday supposedly, but the tracking on the order said it was ready now. My only option was to text them, but it took them awhile to answer my text. They finally did and assured me that the order would be ready on Friday, but it was very irritating until it was resolved.
After lunch, when it was almost nap time, we all piled in the car and drove to the CuriOdyssey in Marina Park in San Mateo. Emi fell asleep in the car almost instantly so she had a good little nap on the way there. It’s a kid’s science museum with a little zoo and playground as well. Emi has been there many times but she still loved it. There were all kinds of interactive exhibits explaining various scientific principles. I certainly enjoyed it! There was also a section called the Illumitorium. It was a darker area with exhibits displaying various properties of light. Emi got a little lantern to carry through the exhibit and she was charmed. She definitely didn’t want to give it back at the end!
After that we went to look at the animals. It’s a very small zoo, and the animals seemed cold and depressed. They are mostly animals that were injured or originally kept as pets and then given up so they can’t be returned to the wild. I felt sorry for them.
Once we had checked out the playground it was time to go get a snack, some coffee and go home. It took a little longer but Emi fell asleep on the way home too. Good naps today!
We’ve had a great visit. We’re going home tomorrow, but we’ll be back again in March. I can’t imagine what she’ll be doing by then!
Tuesday Dec16
Well I wasn’t going to write anything else about this trip but Emi is sick. She woke up a couple of times last night and was very very fussy this morning. Every little thing was setting her off. At one point I was reading to her and she kind of got stuck on one particular page in a book and wanted me to read that one page over and over. And she was extremely clingy with her parents. She asked for some applesauce and when Daniel got up to get it she shrieked “daddy!! Daddy!!” Nobody could really comfort her except maybe Kelsey.
As we were leaving for the airport they were getting ready to give her some baby Tylenol. I texted from the airplane to see how she was doing. By then she was asleep and had a low grade fever. Poor Emi and poor parents!
Postscript: Turns out Emi had hand, foot and mouth disease, which they suspected, because it's been going around at daycare. She was sick all week but she's all better now. I was worried that one of us would get it but we're dodged that bullet. I guess we wash our hands enough!
