A-tishoo!

Last week was the start of the school holidays. By 10am that Monday I had received four phone-calls all prefaced with "I'm ON THE PHONE! Oh, hello, would T like a play-date?".

We've been doing lots of house-calls then, visiting the zoo, going to the pictures. Instead of Mandarin Chinese, we're actually making lots of forts in the garden, and revisiting Enid Blyton and her numerous insufferable brats.

As T's toe was still in the painful stage, we borrowed someone's push-chair to go around MOA (the Mall of America, dontcha know). For the first time I was actually able to do some shopping there as there was no-one whingeing (as T in the pushie, and bridgjo was at work). Except I had forgotten just how awkward push-chairs can be - especially there as the lift at the car-park does not actually arrive at the same level as the sky-way - you have to take a flight of stairs down.

The zoo was incredibly hot. Again she was in the push-chair (I began to get paranoid, convinced that people were judging my parenting-skills letting her slob in there. Each day's trip was making me put a larger and larger bandage on her toe), so negligible complaining. Sometimes that is good. There they have strategically placed showers on the walkways so that you can stand under and get a light misting. Very pleasant on the super hot days they seem to have here (NO! I am NOT complaining!).

Yesterday we went to the art shop to get crafting supplies for when the grand-parents visit (today). T managed to drop a block of wood, corner down, on the exact same toe, just where the nail had come off.

Do you ever receive a "sign"? Not the heavens opening, streaming light sort of sign, but more practical? Sort of one day, you hear a word for the first time, and learn its meaning, and the next day it's used 3 times on the news.

The previous week I was driving home and saw a woman pull-over on the motor-way with a flat-tyre (tire for my American readers, I'm so thoughtful). I thought "Ho-hum, what a pain to have a flat on the motor-way, (free-way. Oh never mind, this is too hard). So when I later drove to school, I walked around the car, kicking the tyres, and lo! The back one was all squishy (never a good sign). So off I trundled to the near-by garage, and the chap very kindly sorted it out there-and-then for me for $12.50. Extremely handy service indeed (though I am never sure if you are expected to tip that sort of thing?) - so at least my fortuitous sign meant I didn't have to suffer a buckled wheel-trim and the possible ignominy of having to flag someone down cause my phone's dead.

So the stagiaire's now been kicked-out to make room for our next visitors - bridgjo's mum and dad. She said as she left "That room's quite big really when it's tidy, isn't it?". Indeed.

Oh, and as I left the play-date yesterday, my friend said, "Oh, I didn't tell you - the other week we went to a party, and such-and-such called up the next day saying 'Are you all OK? Only Sebastian's just been diagnosed with Swine Flu'". (And in case you're interested, everyone is fine, and it was just like normal flu for the people who got it).