Rough night last night. First Enid woke up with a coughing fit (lingering cough from a cold she has had for about a week). I had to get her a drink of water and put her back to bed. Then she woke up twice later in the night and vomited. Not much vomit and it wasn’t accompanied by a fever or much discomfort, but it was enough to prevent us from getting a decent night’s sleep.

Fortunately she seemed completely recovered this morning. Not me. But I did my best to stay positive anyway. And it actually turned out to be a good day. We all went to the coffee shop first thing, then played around the apartment the rest of the morning. Enid created a pet store with all her toy animals, and Robin and I were her customers. After that Enid took a trip to the moon in the cardboard box spaceship I built for her. Then we all took showers and got ready to go visit some new friends. They are the family of a woman named Patty who went to graduate school with an old friend of ours named Monica. Patty and her family were super-nice and easy to get along with.

Half of the family was totally deaf, which made for an interesting social dynamic. They could read lips a little, but even so Robin and I couldn’t communicate directly with them very well. But the family members that could hear interpreted with sign language for the non-hearing, and everyone had a good time. The best part was that Patty’s sister had two children (both hearing) that Enid was able to play with. They all got along well, and at the end Enid said she wished we could have stayed longer. It was just what Robin and I have been craving: a chance to have fun being adults with other adults while Enid had fun being a kid with other kids. Hopefully we’ll see Patty’s family again, although Patty herself is doing research in Taiwan and has to fly back there the day after tomorrow. She was only home briefly for the holiday, and to see her ailing grandmother.

One of the things the kids did today was draw with crayons. When Enid showed me her drawings I was totally blown away. The little girl that did nothing but scribble a few months ago is suddenly drawing recognizable people, trees, houses, rockets and ice cream cones. And signing her name to the drawings! When did she learn to do that?!