Hospitals, Rabid Babies, and Rollerblading. Just Another Typical Saturday.

After a night of barbecuing, Canadian style, with coworkers on the company balcony (Canadian style meaning with a propane barbecue big enough to cook more than one hamburger at a time =), I was a little worried about getting up the next morning. Tamie was more concerned with my coming home on Friday night. Luckily (or not?) it was a fairly early night, so I got home with little trouble and fairly sober.

Today started out early, but not as early as we planned. A 10:30am appointment at the hospital (Layla’s bi-weekly checkup) meant we needed to get up around 9 to give us plenty of time to get ready and go. Setting our alarm for 8:30 should have been enough of a head start but, as always happens, a few presses of the snooze button and we were already behind the eight ball. Scrambling to get ready, we were out the door with seconds to spare. Making it to the hospital by 10:40 could be considered on time for a Saturday morning.

With Layla semi-feverish, coughing and sniffling, I was a little concerned she might get the lung and nostril treatment again. Luckily for her the doctor gave her the green light, only prescribing another bag full of medicine and forgoing the nose torture. After ten minutes of sucking vapour and twenty minutes of waiting for our prescription(s) to be filled, we were out of the hospital. The whole day ahead of us, we were ready to do… something. Planning is for the unspontaneous!

Back at home, Tamie fried up some of her world-famous potato chips while I readied my rollerblades for the next time I went – apparently not rotating the wheels is not a good thing, and I discovered my front wheels were worn down to the metal. I figured now was probably a good time to switch them up. Layla ended up lying down on the floor and falling asleep before we sat down to have a light lunch of beer and chips (on an unrelated note, I’m still not sure why I’m putting on weight). No amount of poking, prodding or holding chips under Layla’s nose would wake her up.

Eventually Layla woke up and we dropped by a bookstore to get a guide book about Naruto, our upcoming island excursion to see giant whirlpools. While Tamie checked up books on Naruto, I looked at the guide books for Canada – it’s interesting to see what is interesting to others about Ottawa. Funny thing, they listed four or five restaurants in the market… one of which was a Japanese restaurant and one being Colonnade Pizza. Yep, that’s Ottawa cuisine in a nutshell.

After our adventures researching and planning our next adventures (spontaneity be damned), we headed over to get some coffee at Starbucks. Frappuccinos all around! Again, no idea about that whole weight thing… I had my camera with me, as always, so snapped a couple pics of the girls as Tamie read about Naruto and Layla chugged her green tea concoction.

Eventually bored of the whole coffee thing, Layla lead us downstairs to play. I know she likes to play on stairs so it was win-win for her. Downstairs we did, in fact, play. Running in circles is a great game to a two-year old. At one point, I picked her up, threw her in the air and caught her. Tamie’s always asking me to do that while she was the camera so I did. Layla laughed, Tamie snapped a picture, and I caught the baby. Lather, rinse, repeat. The fourth or fifth time I did it, Layla ended up banging her tooth on my chin, or more precisely biting a big chunk of flesh out of my face. Reeling from the pain, but too manly to admit it, I inspected her mouth to see if she was hurt. The toothy grin told me enough. She was fine. Blood pouring out of my chin, I took a kleenex from Tamie to try to stem the bleeding. Light headed, I sat down while trying not to cry.

As we sat there holding kleenex on my chin, a group of high school kids appeared in front of us out of nowhere. They had a small speaker that they hooked up to their cell phones and blasted (by blasted I mean barely audibly played) tinny dance music for all to enjoy. They took turns dancing – each having his own shtick. One guy did backflips, one did the robot. One seemed to only be able to bounce on one hand – he bounced well, but after seeing it for the third time it got old. Before we left, one guy put on a helmet and spun on his head, break-dance style. The future of boybands was there in front of us and we had to leave to go grocery shopping!

By the time we made it back home, it was getting dark but I was eager to get out and try my newly rotated wheels. Tamie, too, was eager to go jogging. Since I was on wheels, she figured I’d be quicker so I left while she stayed back to watch the kid and prepare dinner. Boy was she wrong. I should have been faster but it was dark. There are no street lights in rice fields. Seeing is definitely not overrated.

I wanted to find a good route so went exploring, letting the colour of the traffic lights dictate my direction. When there were no traffic lights I’d just pick whichever street had the biggest sidewalk. Luckily I had a GPS enabled phone with me — but even after I got lost I was too stubborn to look at it. It’s not a big neighbourhood so I figured I could make my way back. I’m here typing now, so obviously I did, but not without doubling back a few times. Check this out for an idea of how lost I was. =)

By the time I made it back, nearly an hour had passed. Tamie tried to use the dark as an excuse not to go jogging but I would have none of it. Actually, it took very little to convince my little marathon runner to get out there and sweat. So while she didn’t get lost, I watched Sesame Street with Layla. She fell asleep, and I almost did. Luckily Tamie came back just in time. We had a nice steak dinner before putting Layla down to bed. Looking at the time now, it’s about time we head off ourselves.