Listen to the Rain

She was feeling bad yesterday so she reached out to my parents and asked them if they would like Laila to do an overnight stay. Then when she woke up this morning, she was feeling much better and worried about being away from Laila for so long and thought about texting my parents and telling them they didn't need to come in, but then this afternoon she started feeling bad again, so it turned out that no mistakes were made after all. She's currently resting in the bedroom playing an Otome game she downloaded on her phone.

It would be all the makings of a fun date night but sashagee isn't feeling well enough for it, so I'll probably go to services tonight. I haven't been to Friday night services in a while, and the last time I went Laila wasn't having it, and sashagee could use having her name put in for the מי שברך mi shebeirach prayer for healing.

Laila is twenty-two months old today and sashagee is planning her birthday already. Since it's two, it's going to be very groovy ✌🏻. She's picking out flower placemats, floral decorations, etc. But, that'll come later.

Last time I updated, Laila was starting to talk. She's been expanding her vocabulary over the last few months and it currently stands at the following words:( baby words ) I'm sure I'm missing a few here and there, but those are the ones I've heard.

She enjoys drawing! sashagee bought her a bunch of egg-shaped crayons and she didn't really take to them, but sashagee read something somewhere about how triangular markers were better because they were easy to grasp and they encouraged proper grip. Whether that's true or not I don't know, but Laila has really taken to them. In addition to her daily Sesame Street time in the morning, she now has drawing time in the evening. She's still at the "make lines" stage, but she'll sometimes carefully pick out colors and often try to match the colors of whatever pictures we've drawn. And you can't just sit with her and watch her draw, oh no--you have to participate too. It's no fun if she's just making a design if she doesn't have any additional assistance. Even Michelangelo had help when he painted the Sistine Chapel.

Now that my father has retired, he and my mother come to our house every single week to see Laila. They'll often take her out on trips so they get some time together and sashagee has a chance to clean the house. Lately, they've been taking her to the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, which has a bunch of butterflies and a nice children's section. They've told us that she's gradually gotten more and more adventurous while she's been there. There's a tent set up inside and originally Laila did not want to go near it. Then she'd go up to the door but wouldn't go inside. Now she'll go inside for a bit and then come back out. As she learns that things are safe, she's willing to take more risks, and my parents get more time with their granddaughter. It's win-win!

Laila's favorite thing in the world, though, is looking at pictures of herself:


That was when I just stuck up the camera in selfie mode and she was so happy to see her face she immediately started smiling. This happens every time she sees herself, to the point where she'll often steal one of our phones and turn on the selfie camera so she can look at herself. If she sees the door to our room is open, she'll go back there and close the door so she can look at herself in the full-length mirror on the back (and sometimes get scared about being alone and then start crying). So far it's cute, and it's an easy way to keep her happy with just a mirror.

In sad news, though, the downside of Laila being a normal almost-two-year-told is that the tantrums and the boundary-pushing have begun. Today she threw all her food around during lunch, in a way she used to never do--throwing food is wasting it, wasting food means you can't eat it--and a few days ago she wanted an apple, sashagee picked out an apple and turned towards the sink to go wash and then cut it and Laila collapsed on the floor in tears because she was denied the apple, completely ignoring sashagee's protestations that she would get it soon. I know it's a sign of her emotional development, but a part of me misses our always-happy, smiley baby. Still, no one can remain in the nest forever.

To end on a happy note, though, I'll tell you the absolute cutest thing she does--when she thinks she's done a good job at something, she claps for herself.

What other ways will she grow and change?

sashagee is probably the most into Valentine's Day person I've ever dated, but for different reasons--cuteness. She loves everything cute, pink hearts and cute chocolates and stores done up with decorations and squishy things and so on. In America cute things are heavily devalued unless they're animals or babies and liking cuteness is considered a childish trait, so she doesn't get much expression for her preferences...except on holidays like Valentine's Day. It's not the flowers or the chocolates, it's the cuteness around them.

She had big plans for Valentine's Day that unfortunately didn't all work out, but we did get the day all to ourselves--my parents came and picked up Laila in the morning and took her out to the aquarium and then back to their house for a sleepover, leaving sashagee and me in a baby-free house for the whole day. We ate lunch together, then sashagee took a shower and got ready while I did some dishes, and then she rested to recover her strength. Around 3 p.m. we got on the train and went downtown for the first part of our day, buying her Valentine's Day present--an Apple Watch. sashagee always used to be an Android user, even as the rest of her family used iOS, because she preferred the widgets and the greater customizability of Android. But the multiple family albums with cute Laila photos that she was completely excluded from unless she asked me to send the photos to her finally won her over. She's had an iPhone for around a year now, and she's mentioned that she's ready to buy fully into the walled garden--watch, AirPods, the works. Having a baby means we do not have a lot of extra money so the full buy-in did not occur, but she got her watch in a cute rose-gold with a red band.

After that we walked over to the train, stopped briefly for donuts on the way, and took the train out to Oak Park and the restaurant where sashagee had gotten us reservations at:


Amerikas.

This is a salmon tlayuda, described by the internet as "Oaxacan pizza", and it was delicious. Salmon, avocado puree, radishes, greens, and a spicy sauce. We also got the pollo which Sasha ate since I was having a dairy meal--and this turned out to be fortuitous anyway because she hadn't noticed that it contained chorizo--and the calabaza, with roasted acorn squash, wild mushroom risotto, and Chile de arbol – truffle butter. Everything was delicious, and we ended up finishing the calabaza and taking only a couple tiny boxes home. We each had two cocktails, probably a mistake when we're trying to save money, but one was gin-based (my weakness) and the other was mezcal based (sashagee's weakness), so we each got our own preference at the beginning and then tried each other's drinks. Surprisingly, the gin drink was much sweeter than the mezcal one! Then, we got dessert--dragonfruit cheesecake and crème brûlée:


We had arrived an hour early at the restaurant, but they had a seat for us, so we left around the time when our reservation would have been. And then it took us much longer than we expected, because I had four Lyft drivers cancel on me and sashagee had two cancel on her. She initially thought it was because I had a bad rating until she had her first cancellation, but I think it was just because drivers didn't want to take someone from Oak Park through the city to the north side. We waited for half an hour, to the point where it would have probably been easier (and much cheaper) to just take the train home, and then finally got a ride. At this point sashagee was very tired so she went almost straight to bed. I followed pretty closely behind because I did not take work off today, so I had to get up at 6:30 a.m. But sashagee got to sleep in! I am looking forward to seeing Laila when I get home today, though--I'm sure it'll be different when she's older, but right now when she's small and cute and wants hugs all the time, I miss her so much when she's away.

I knew that children were plaguebearers, of course, but I didn't expect that to be the case until she started going to school! Laila got sick from something, somewhere--who knows where--and for her, it was just her being a bit more sniffly than usual. She still doesn't know how to deal with colds, and sashagee noticed that Laila had some gunk coming out of her eyes because her nose was clogged, but a bit of work with one of those baby nose-suckers cleared it right up. That's the extent of the damage that Laila suffered.

Not so sashagee and me. I ran a fever of 38.7° last night and decided not to take any medicine for it, since I read an article a few years ago about how fever is the body's natural antibiotic and fever-reducing medicine can prolong illness as long as the fever isn't too severe. It mostly seems to have worked--I slept terribly, going to bed at 9:30 p.m. and waking up at 8 a.m. but only getting 7 hours or sleep and 0 minutes of deep sleep according to my watch, but I don't have a fever today and feel much better. That's not true for sashagee, who spent this afternoon napping and who feels worse today than she did yesterday. Her health is definitely still more delicate than mine is, though, so that's probably part of why she's having more trouble. I'm going to give her as much help as I can and hope that she's feeling better tomorrow!

*lets out a long slow breath*



It has been a year. But a month and a half after we drew down Laila's spasm medicine to nothing, she still hasn't had any more spasms and she's developing normally. She's started saying "Wha dat?" and pointing at things, which means the house will never be quiet again. She gets very insistent that when she's sitting in our lap with a book, we read it to her. And we read it to her the way she wants it read, and if that's backwards, or skipping back and forth through the book, or stopping halfway through, well, that's what she wants.

She's going to be okay.

Answering questions provided by fiachairecht! For the first five people who ask, I'll ask you questions too.

1) What's your favourite raid in FFXIV?

Hmm, this is a hard question.

In terms of aesthetics, it's probably The Weeping City of Mhach (pronounced "Vaḥ"), a ruined city of demon-summoners in the middle of a swamp. Their bound demons are still there, so it starts with swamp monsters and zombies and then gets more demonic as you approach the city, ending with a magical weapon system based on the secret boss from Final Fantasy IX and a surviving sorceress who transformed herself into a demon.

In terms of mechanics, it's The Orbonne Monastery, featuring beloved Final Fantasy Tactics favorites Mustadio Bunansa, Agrias Oaks, Cidolfus Orlandeau, and Ultima the High Seraph as, respectably, a giant killer robot, a literal avenging angel, a death god (canon), and Ultima the High Seraph. The first fight has a lot of dodging sniper shots and facing particular directions, the second has picking up divine swords and shields and using them at the appropriate times, the third fight is a lot of running in and out, and the fourth fight involves avoiding miniature version of bosses from other raids and navigating a maze while dodging attacks. I love it and I wish that it wasn't so unpopular.

Plus it has some of the best voice acting of any fight in the game. With quotes like:

Agrias
"The hearts of men are black with corruption and must needs be cleansed!"

"Seven shadows cast, seven fates foretold. Yet at the end of the broken path lies death, and death alone."

Ultima
"Denizens of the abyss! From ink of blackest night, I summon you!"

"To maintain order, one must first have control."

But the real standout is Cid:

Cid
"I am Count Cidolfus Orlandeau. Your journey ends here."

"Open your eyes to the darkness, and drown in its loveless embrace. The gods will not be watching."

"Misfortune hangs heavy on a head once held high. Such is poor cover for when the heavens fall."

"To live by the sword is to die by the sword. There is time enough for regret in the flames of hell."

And his limit attack:

"I have been called the god of thunder. You will now know why! Upon my holy blade the very world lies in balance."

"And
now
the
scales
will
tip!"

It made it baffling when I got to the Nier raids later and there was no voice acting. Nier raids win for music, though.

2) What's a book/album/[insert choice of media category here] that feels like it was made just for you?

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik, which I always describe to people as "Jews vs. the Fair Folk." One of the major problems with so much European medievalish fantasy is that there is no European Christianity without Judaism, not just because of historical outgrowth reasons but because we were the eternal comparison point for Christianity (this is explicit in some Christian writings, where they state that G-d keeps us around to show the dangers of "rejecting" Jesus). Spinning Silver is still an obvious product of modernity--there's a joke in there about the Christian servant thinking the Jews are casting "spells" over their bread (because they're reciting the blessing before meals in Hebrew) and this does not lead to accusations of witchcraft and pogroms like it probably would in real history--but also there are ice faeries demanding the heroine turn straw into gold, which she refuses to do on Shabbat. What more do you want?

3) What's a place in Japan that you've not yet been to that you would like to visit?

The Sea of Japan coastline. I've been there very briefly, to Tottori dunes and to 出雲大社 izumo-taisha and Matsue, but otherwise I haven't really been there at all. There's some beautiful beaches on the side of the islands and it's generally more rural since it's not on the Tōkaidō. Having lived in a rural area for years there, the cities are nice but rural life is where it's at. There are plenty of small towns next to fabulous natural wonders that I bet get almost no foreign tourists because no one knows they're there, or even places like Sandankyō in Hiroshima which is well-known and beautiful but not on a train line. I could spend a whole two weeks on that coastline.

4) Do you prefer being a player or GM in TTRPGs, and why?

GM. My primary interest in fictional worlds is in worldbuilding, in seeing how the setting works and where the assumptions lead. Just lately I've been reading up a ton on the Second Apocalypse book series because it has a lot of non-standard metaphysical worldbuilding assumptions--"morality" is a measurable property of the universe like gravity or mass, which means that it's possible to scientifically prove if someone is damned to hell or not (and it turns out like 99.99% of people are) the same way you can do a blood test, or to show that snakes are holy and pigs are profane--but I've never actually read any of those books and probably never will.

What that means is that I love doing a bunch of setting creation and finding a way to integrate that into fun gameplay without doing an infodump (i.e., the thing that Tolkien got right and so many fantasy authors don't). For my Warlords of the Mushroom Kingdom game I had a hierarchy based on video game history, so before the modern stuff based on 8- and 16-bit games there were fallen arcade game precursor civilizations, like the crabs from the Mario Bros. game, the flying demons from Ghouls 'n' Ghosts, or an empire of Donkey Kongs. I get my fun worldbuilding exercise, the players get to find the overgrown ruins of a Kong Imperium temple-city in the jungle, and we all have a great time.

As a player I don't usually get to participate in worldbuilding and (maybe paradoxically) the RPGs that do allow it for players are ones I don't like to play that much.

5) What surprised you most about becoming a parent?

How much and how little human children know. I had no idea that humans had to be taught to laugh and smile. When Laila was born, she could cry, and otherwise she had a blank expression and we could really only tell what she was interested in by where she was looking. It was really funny when I was playing airplane with her, because I'd be holding her above my head and flying her around and she was just 😐 the whole time, but by her eyes we could tell she was really enjoying it. When she started laughing, she went through a few iterations of laughs, including one that sounded like a hacking cough and one that sounded like she was gasping for air, before settling on her current cute baby giggle.

On the other hand, I also didn't realize infants can instinctively swim. When we took Laila to the mikvah, I had to let her go into the water so she would be completely surrounded, and as soon as she went underwater she immediately closed her mouth and stuck her arms out, exactly what you need to do to slow your descent and make sure you don't inhale any water.

But honestly, the thing that surprised me is how much I love it in a way I did not expect. I realize that I'm not to any of the hard parts (though we had an any% hard part speedrun thanks to her spasms), but I think modern American culture focuses too much on the difficult parts of parenthood and not the joys.

Plus, yeah, evolutionary conditioning. It really is different when it's your kid.

I didn't get a chance to write yesterday because it was my father's 70th birthday, so he came into the city to see Laila. We didn't do much that's exciting, but he also didn't fill his entire visit with home improvement projects, so he got to spend the entire visit playing with Laila (other than her nap time).

I wrote last time that she was down to one nap, and that's mostly true now, but it's been an uneven transition. She generally takes a single nap around two hours long, but if she hasn't slept well the previous days she'll go back to two naps. She's also outgrown her baby sleeping sacks and now we put her in footie pajamas and under a small blanket, since she's old enough that it's not dangerous anymore. That doesn't mean that she has any expertise in using them yet, though--one of my standard tasks as her father is that when I go to bed, I always sneak into her room and check on her to make sure she's doing okay, and inevitably I have to take the blanket and tuck her back in since she's rolled out of it somehow. She's always nice and warm when I come in and check her in the morning, though, so I don't have to worry about her freezing. Even her hands are warm.

In the most important news yet, though, she's walking! :

She has a lot of opinions.

It's like one day she just decided that it was time to put everything into practice and ever since then she's been a walking champ. She still has some baby unsteadiness but she can crouch down and pick things up, stop and turn around, start walking immediately if I set her on her feet after I've picked her up...I wonder if it was a confidence issue before, or if she didn't see the utility of walking comparing to crawling? But now she has and she's walking everywhere, which means we need to keep an extra eye on her. She walked three blocks back from the park holding my hand! And then climbed the stair back up to the house at the end.

The really funny part is how she'll imitate my exercise. Our condo is laid out lengthwise like most Chicago condos, so I'll walk up and down the hallway to get steps in. Laila does it too--she'll walk up and down the hall and when we pass each other, she'll look up at me, put out a hand on my leg to steady herself, and then walk around me and keep going.

She also has much more personality, which means that she complains more. Previously it was related to food but now sometimes when she doesn't get her way--if she grabs something she shouldn't have and we take it away from her, or if she wants to play right now but we're busy with something--she sometimes gets offended and starts crying. We'd had a couple collapse on the floor in tears moments, but at least right now they never last long. It's an important developmental sign but it's still a bit disconcerting. At least right now it's easy to redirect her!

How much more will she grow and change?

Having a family means we can do a family costume, and, well:



sashagee said that since I'm a dad now, I needed a dad costume, and here we are.

May your candy buckets be full and your bag of tricks empty!

Being a family man, that's where.

The High Holy Days are over and the HHD season is almost over too. sashagee, Laila, and I all went to Rosh Hashanah day service together for an hour or so, long enough to stay for part of the Torah service before Laila got too restless and had to go. She made friends with an older man sitting next to us with his two daughters and spent a chunk of time wondering at how many people were packed into the Athanaeum (filled to capacity--we had to sit in the far back corner and there were still people standing behind us). She loved all the times that we were singing and lost all interest when the rabbi started talking. The same thing happened the morning of Yom Kippur--I went to Kol Nidre myself just fine, but sashagee had scheduled two doctors' appointments on Yom Kippur day itself, one for Laila and one for her, so for most of the day I watched the service on livestream and wrangled Laila. Again, she loves singing. I think that's universal to babies.

Before the HHD sashagee and I went apple picking with my family, sashagee's family still being on vacation. I have a lot of pictures from last year, but didn't take as many this time because it was just the five of us. We didn't go out to dinner afterwards either for the same reason, though we did stay over at my parents' house for the weekend. They made us dinner and played with Laila, we relaxed, and they took us home the next day. I'm glad that we live so close to both of our parents and they get so much time with her during her cute baby months!

It's currently Sukkot (or "The Festival of Booths" if you read the KJV), but Sukkot is the worst holiday for urbanites without yards like me because we can't do any of the requirements. So we went to a picnic put on by Mishkan where Laila kept trying to crawl away to other picnic-goers and, when we went up to enter the sukkah, attached herself to an older couple ahead of me in line named Rob and Eileen. Laila gave them both hugs and tried to steal their food, standard baby behaviors. She didn't like the nuts but she did really like the nut crackers they gave her, and they were really happy to get some unexpected baby hugs.

Simchat Torah is coming up too and we're going to a family pizza party before that. I think little baby Laila will love the singing and dancing, though it'll be quite a while before she can hold a Torah.

This weekend we're going out to visit my family again, since my world-traveling veterinarian sister wanderluster_kp will be world-traveling basically through the end of the year afterwards and it's the only time we have to get together. It'll be a big Thanksgiving dinner except spooky--well, not really, since my parents decorate for fall and not for Halloween. We do have costumes planned though, and we'll be taking Laila trick or treating!

Alright, Laila's asleep so I can get some real work done without her trying to crawl under my desk to look at all the cords and flashing lights.

I'm forty years old now as of last Saturday! I'm an old man, finally matching the 👴🏻 emoji that sashagee uses in her phone for me. Except not really, because I'm still in great health and people I meet all assume I'm ten years younger than I am, so I'm doing pretty well for myself. I own a home and I have a baby, so I'm hitting my so-called milestones. And I still have all my hair.

I'm not sure I'm going to have a mid-life crisis, but sashagee says Laila was my mid-life crisis, which is as good an argument as any.

On Saturday, my parents came into town to see us--they were originally going to come the previous weekend but sashagee wasn't feeling well--and give me my presents, which were mostly extremely-dark chocolate. sashagee got me a neon Kirby sign , which we can put up in the kitchen area of our future home. And then we went out to eat at a local restaurant called Gadabout, which used to be a wine, cheese, and bakery specialty shop, and before that used to be an organic grocery store. I give them props for the server knowing exactly what was involved when she asked about dietary restrictions and I said I kept kosher--she told me up front they couldn't accommodate that but they'd keep the meat and milk separate--and anti-props for naming the shakshuka "baked eggs." But when it came all was forgiven:


The potatoes were delicious too, with toasted shallots and a bit of some kind of creme on them.

My parents stayed until Laila's second nap, delayed due to the restaurant trip, and then they went home, but not before telling me that they had put a considerable amount of money into Laila's college fund. More than some people's entire college costs (but not enough to cover a single year at Penn >). They don't expect to live long enough to see Laila go to college, or if they have, they don't expect to have all their faculties. But they want to make sure that Laila can go anywhere she wants. As a high school student, my father got into Stanford but could not afford to go and so went to USCD. He's determined that no one in his family will have to make the same decision.

The rest of the day we took it easy so that sashagee could rest.

On Sunday, her parents came to visit and we got food from the exact same restaurant, and I ordered the exact same thing since it was so delicious the previous time. sashagee got a chia pudding and a chai cinnamon roll since the French toast she had ordered the last time wasn't really that great, even though she had thought she would love the horchata-based sauce it had. We didn't go anywhere or do anything exciting, just ate and talked and let Laila crawl around while sashagee's mother held her and her father played with her, and at her second nap they left to go home--fortunately against the Air and Water Show traffic. This time, though, we did not rest the rest of the day since we had another scheduled event--ribfest!

I was a little bit worried when I first arrived and saw all the pork, pork ribs, bacon, even bacon-infused whiskey, but while waiting in line for a spot that had a brisket sandwich I noticed the rabbi was also in attendance, which made me feel better. When we arrived, we met up with some people from the Anime Club who were nearby--we had missed a house party the previous day due to the aforementioned resting--but pretty quickly got separated from them sashagee picked a particular booth with an extremely long line. According to spacedragon, this year was the first time back after the Plague Years, and the vendor situation was weird. Only six stalls seemed to be even serving ribs and at least one of them was out by 6 p.m. We talked to a couple in line ahead of us after Laila grabbed the man's shirt, and they said they were originally in a different line until the booth announced that no ribs would even be ready until 6:30 p.m.

The brisket was okay. Not worth the hour we waited for it. Laila liked it thought! And the ribs--if she wants to keep kosher it'll be her decision, and we're prepared for "But abba doesn't eat lots of food!" with explaining to her all the rules I follow and asking her if she wants to follow them too. We'll see where that leads.

All in all, a good birthday weekend spent with family.

Even though I know when Laila's birthday was, for some reason I kept thinking "Oh I'll write the post on Thursday." Oops.

Laila is doing well! My last post was about taking her to the hospital for an overnight EEG, and we did that, and the EEG was totally normal. That's what the team of doctors--and the nurse, and the nursing assistant, and a couple hangers-on because everyone wanted to see the cutest baby on the 19th floor-- came in to tell us, and they told us to keep an eye out and that they would continue her medication adjustment. The day we got home, she had more strange movements, but I had noticed a pattern--both times, they happened at the end of her mealtime, when she was belted into her high chair. Could it be that her seatbelt, which I had shortened a couple months ago to prevent her from leaning forward and vacuuming up all her food instead of using her hands, was now too tight? sashagee said that since she's there watching Laila, just to put in her without using the belt anymore, and we haven't seen any strange movements in the last week. Whether it's the seatbelt or the medication adjustment, now she's okay.

She's not quite walking yet, though she is standing up on her own for brief periods! She's following Wile E. Coyote rules, though, where she can only really do it if she doesn't realize that she's doing it. She'll be standing all on her own for a moment, realize what's happening, and then plop back down, or rock back far enough that she realizes she's not holding on to sashagee and then fall, and so on. Maybe she just needs a bit more confidence--she's definitely a very cautious baby. I'm reminded of when she was first learning how to get down from standing up, where she'd hold on to the table with one hand and slooooooooooowly lower herself until she could feel the floor with her other hand before finally letting go.

Also, she has curly hair!


I may not have given her my red hair--the most I managed is a reddish tint--but she does have sashagee and my curls. The happy smile in that photo is because she just knocked the pan off the shelf and heard the CLANG.

She's saying a few words now, too! "Mama" and "Abba" of course (though she still has a bit of trouble with that one, and sometimes says "papa" or "baba" instead), but she also understands some others. Just a few days ago she bit sashagee and when sashagee said, "Laila! No!" Laila responded with, "Ow? Ow, ma ma?" She knows "wow!" when something happens that she thinks is interesting. She also knows what "No" means, though she only really says it in times of extreme duress like when we dare to clean her when her face is all covered in food. When she hears it, it's even odds whether she looks at us and then ignores it, stops what she's doing, or tries to finish whatever she's doing faster before we get over there to stop her.

How much will she change between now and the sixteen-month update?

As a one-year-old, Laila is no longer a little baby and so the nomenclature must change.

On Friday night, sashagee and I drove out to her parents' place in the suburbs to spend the night so that we could properly get everything ready for the party. The suburban location meant that most of my friends couldn't come--a lot of live the true city existence and so don't own cars--but weather was going to be so lovely that the backyard was certainly the best place to hold it, so we did. On Saturday sashagee and I blew up balloons, her parents hung up the "🍓 HAPPY 🍓 BIRTHDAY 🍓" banner, and sashagee baked the cake that Laila would be eating.

I had never heard of the whole smash cake thing and neither had my parents--when I asked if my father knew about it, his answer was just "No" and when I explained it, he elaborated, "...why?"--and Laila didn't really do any fun kind of smashing. She saw some food in front of her and she immediately set about doing what babies do to food--eating it. No extra movements, no fuss, pure predatory efficiency. She ate the whole thing and then spent a while crawling around the yard, with no apparent effect from all the sugar (though sashagee picked a mostly cream frosting so it wouldn't be incredibly sugary). She did stay up until almost 4:15 p.m. but the excitement from a lot of people probably led to that.

There are plenty of photos up on sashagee's instagram but here are a couple more!:

( Two pics of Laila )

Here's to many more happy birthdays in the future!

Chicago is not a city you'd usually think of for cherryblossoms thanks to our weather--yesterday it was 10°C and rainy on the first of May--but there is a grove of them near the Museum of Science and Industry. The Park District has a dedicated website for the cherryblossom forecast that started in 2019, but that year about half the buds didn't open because it was so cold through most of the year. And, well, we all know how 2020 and 2021 went.

But this year, sashagee is starting to feel better (about which more in another post) and Laila is doing great, so I told basically everyone I knew about the cherryblossom festival on May 1st (moved from April 24th due to rain), we woke Laila up from her nap at 11:45 a.m., and drove down to MSI for the afternoon.

( Blossoms are falling )