elephant day at the zoo...

oakland zoo had this big elephant extravaganza... being regular patrons, we had to check it out. one of the special features of ele-palooza was a special behind the scenes tour of the elephant barn. we would have had the opportunity to get up close and personal with a 9,000 elephant. we thought this would be especially fun since elephants were the first animals she identified (besides cat, which was her first word). alas, the tours were sold out until 1:00 p.m. which would have been dangerously close to nap time. on top of that, there were no strollers allowed in the barn so not only would hana have been tired and cranky, but we would have had to carry her. personally, i would rather be trapped in a barrel with angry rattle snakes then with stand the smell of an elephant barn (and it's 9,000 elephant by product) on a hot day with a cranky toddler. besides, hana wasn't feeling her best so we thought it best not to push it. we passed on the special elephant features and just had a regular day at the zoo...

well, except we did see "circus finelli" which was a little clown show, uh, i mean animal free circus (but they will never be mistaken for cirque du soleil). it was cute and hana got her face painted. i was dubious of how she would tolerate that and i assumed it would be all over me. but actually, she did well with it and it ended up all over her crib sheet from her nap when we got home.

i mentioned that hana wasn't feeling that well that day, well, as it turned out, she was working on some little sickenss that ended up scaring the bejeezus out of jon and me. at dinner that night, we noticed her shivering but she didn't seem cold. she did feel a little febrile so i took her temprature (like 17 times) and it was 105!!!!! EEEEK! after a bath (which usually helps regulate her temperature), dressing her light for bed (to help cool her off) and me taking her temprature about 17 more times to confirm i wasn't crazy ( i wasn't) we called the doc. dr. bean sounded like he was at his usual saturday hang out - yoshi's - but he was no less patient and helpful. he even offered to see us sunday morning at his office if her fever hadn't broken by morning. we followed his advice (give tylenol and ibuprofen) and she was fine in the morning. the funny thing about it is that she didn't act abnormal at all. she was tired, but it was bed time, but she wasn't even whiny. she wanted to talk to dr. bean on the phone (she kept saying "hewoh"... so darn cute) and she stayed up about 30 minutes or so watching sesame street before drifting off to sleep.

i took her in for a follow up just so the doc could lay eyes on her. she was fine. everything was cool. she stood on the big girl scale for the first time and she weighed in at 28.5 lbs. that's mama's little beanstalk!