desh

We spent last weekend at Poppa and Nana's since we haven't been there in a long while (since Thanksgiving!)

My mother recently had hip surgery so she wasn't very mobile, and Laila is still not allowed to do a lot of her usual physical activities since she's recovering from her surgery, so this was a very low-key visit. Nana read some books to Laila, Laila rode her tricycle around their house--still pushing off the floor, not pedaling, despite our attempts to teach her how to pedal--I went on a walk with Laila and Poppa, and we watched Frog and Toad. Since Nana couldn't prep a full dinner, we ordered Thai food the first night and ate that and Poppa barbecued some fish and hamburgers the second day. We mostly stayed in the whole weekend, and Laila didn't even throw any tantrums about not being able to go jump on the trampoline. It was nice and low-key.

The one external thing we did was visit shane.suydam and meaghan.figg, who now live only a couple blocks from my parents' house! They have twins and we arrived just when one of the twins was waking up from her nap (the other was already awake). They were a bit unsure of how to handle Laila, especially since they'll be turning two soon and Laila is almost five, but they got along well enough. For her part, Laila was very happy at two full rooms filled with toys and spent a bunch of time in the ball pit, though she did play directly with one of the twins too--there was a stacking toy with pieces that had from one to five holes in them and pins to put them on, and the twin handed pieces to Laila while Laila put them all on the pins. Then we ended with a bit of time in the backyard (though Laila sadly wasn't allowed to climb on the playset) before going back for barbecue and then going home.

Nana's restrictions end in May, just before Laila's. It'll be a long wait for both of them but hopefully they recover okay.

"Awake in the Night" icon during the day? What?

So last night, right before bed, sashagee took Laila's temperature and found that it was above the 38.6°C threshold for us to call into the hospital and so we did. After some deliberation on their end, they asked us to come in, so we hauled Laila out of bed and brought her to the Lurie's Children's Hospital emergency room.

At 8:45 p.m. we checked in.
At 10:30 p.m. they took her vitals and a respiratory illness swab.
At 11:45 p.m. they took us back to a room.
At 12:15 a.m. a doctor came and asked us what the problem was.
At 12:30 a.m. they took her vitals again
At 1:30 a.m. they they took a blood sample and a more comprehensive respiratory swab
At 1:45 a.m. she fell asleep.
at 3:00 a.m. a doctor came back and told us based on the blood sample and the swab...she had a cold and needed rest and fluids.



So we all went home and went to sleep, and sashagee woke up early to let me get extra sleep. Once I woke up, I tagged in and she went back to sleep...and so did Laila so here I am sitting and writing this. Laila has felt perfectly fine since around 10 p.m. last night and other than being tired, doesn't seem sick at all. I was skeptical before we went in that it would be anything, and it wasn't, but you really don't want to mess around with any infection on your head so it was worth getting checked out. But I'm definitely tired.

Laila and sashagee came downtown yesterday to go to a doctor's checkup, because Laila picked at her stitches one day due to being so frustrated with the restrictions that she's still under. But because they were downtown, we decided to go out to eat as a family. Also because it's Passover, we had to find a place that wasn't going to have tons of wheat in everything, so Wildberry Cafe--sashagee's standard choice, since it's right near the hospital--was right out. So I looked online, found a Japanese restaurant I had never heard of before called Cocoro (not 心, "heart" like I originally thought, but instead 香々呂, which I'm not sure exactly what it means but 香 means "fragrance"). I also found this blog post (in Japanese) talking about how good it was. So I thought, sure, we'll go there.

When we walked in I overheard the waitress speaking Japanese, which was a good sign. And then when we all got our miso soup and Laila accidentally spilled hers with how excited she was, the waitress didn't clean it up or even bring us any napkins, which was extremely weird. I have no idea what was going through her head. It didn't get on anyone but it was all over the table, but the trays with our meal just got put on top of it. It was really odd.

When my meal--saba shioyaki, salted mackerel--came too, I was also a bit skeptical:


Looks pretty basic, right? I paid $24 for this? And that was my main through until I took a bite of the fish and all doubt melted away. The fish had a crispy skin wrapped around a deliciously-juicy interior, with enough salt to complement the flavor without totally overpowering it. It was the best saba shioyaki I've ever had, so good that I forgive the kind of scanty offerings for the 三菜 and I'll definitely go again. It's only a ten minute walk from my work so it's not hard to get to either. sashagee and Laila both liked their food, so I bet we'll be back.

Need to try the bentō like sashagee got. It looked fantastic.