After a week of long working days and longer working nights, I was happy to have the weekend upon us. But alas, when the going gets tough, it just gets tougher.
Friday morning, Layla had enough of a fever that the daycare wasn’t willing to take her (38 degrees! oh my!) Swine flu running rampant in our little town, and reports all over the news again caused great concern in Tamie and her parents, enough to take Layla to the hospital. The doctor, after poking and prodding, concluded that she was undetermined to have the flu (of any kind) and we’d have to come back on Saturday. At 9am. So much for sleeping in.
9am rolled around and we were scrambling to get to the hospital on time. Arriving just after 9:07, I was happy to see that there weren’t a million parents with kids in masks. Who ever thought one would be relieved to be only the thirteenth in line at a hospital. We were actually taken care of pretty quickly, and it was determined again that Layla might not have the flu. The fact that her fever had broken wasn’t a good indication as it might come back.
A clean(ish) bill of health in hand, we set out to have a good weekend. So what did we do? The weather was miserable so we didn’t do much. We shopped, we played, we ate, we came home.
Shopping was interesting in that we picked Layla up another toilet. She’s deathly afraid of the big blue (in our house) water closet, and even when we put the friendly bunny Miffy on the toilet seat, she’s still paralyzed. The daycare, from what I understand, are doing their best to toilet train her and have a pot with anpanman, a Japanese cartoon character, encouraging the kids to do their business. I figured it couldn’t hurt to have a similar pot at home, hopefully making her comfortable enough to want to use a toilet. So far? She’s had a lot of fun pushing the buttons that play music… not so much on actually using it.
Playing involved going to the kids’ floor in the department store and letting Layla run around and play with other kids. There’s a sample toy train track out that all kids seem to love, Layla being just one of them. She wasn’t too happy when her favourite toy train (Thomas the Tank Engine, for those keeping score) was being used by another little girl. The little girl was busy playing with two trains, and despite my telling her to wait her turn, Layla insisted on trying to get one. I, using all my cunning (and most of my Japanese skills), convinced the little girl to swap one of her trains for a caboose. Layla still wasn’t happy and tried to take the girl’s other train. She really wasn’t happy when I removed her from the toy section… screaming all the way. Fun times, indeed.
Eating was the highlight of the day. We had shabu shabu, which is lots of beef in a hot pot. Not unlike the previous two weeks of sukiyaki, shabu shabu involves thinly sliced pieces of beef that we cook ourselves in one of many kinds of broth, then dunk in sauce and eat. A new place opened up in our neighbourhood a couple weeks ago and Tamie finally didn’t refuse (at least not strongly enough) to going. It was decent, but we’ve definitely had better.
Sunday was another rainy, miserable day. Tamie had a dentist appointment in the morning, so Layla and I hung out at home before heading out to meet her in Hon-Atsugi when she finished. I was eager to hit up the Burger King there because they were offering a SEVEN patty hamburger, in honour of Microsoft releasing Windows 7. Thankfully, they were sold out when we got there so we went for lunch at a more reasonable, less beefy place.
Before lunch, we headed to the science museum to open Layla’s mind to the wonders and amazements that science has to offer. She seemed to have a good time, playing with marbles and … well, mostly marbles. I was most interested in the hand sanitizer they had available at the exit with the big sign outlining the dangers of influenza. Pandemic, much?
After lunch, we came back to Ebina and ventured back up to the kids’ floor of the department store to give Layla another opportunity to throw a tantrum… unfortunately, they were having some kind of halloween party so there were a thousand kids, all hopped up on sugar and adrenaline… I say unfortunately, not because I didn’t want Layla to get involved, rather she was too timid to go out and play. The chaos of it all seemed to wilt her spirits so we instead helped Tamie shop for a new jogging shirt that she used after we got back home.
Maybe not the most exciting weekend, but it had its moments.