The best laid plans...

No swimming this afternoon. Maya said she wanted to stay home and play with her toys, and ended up getting into bed and falling asleep (that should have been my first clue). I have a cold anyway so I was just as happy to get a chance to rest myself.

She started feeling warm during dinner tonight. Luckily my girlfriend has young children and was able to pull out a bottle of children's tylenol. Here I must add that Maya was an absolute dream all evening. She played beautifully, interacted well, conversing nearly non-stop with my friend and I, started instructing the toddler on how to behave ("no Adam, we don't push those buttons, and we don't scream. We use our words." - that's my girl!), ate well... All the normal things we often take for granted with most children, but a real achievement for Maya, for whom these things don't come that easily. She was truly "present" for the entire evening. I nearly cried when I realized that the 3 of us had been sitting there having a perfectly reasonable, age-appropriate conversation for at least half an hour. No repetition of our words and phrases, no rote speechmaking, no circling the room endlessly. Just a half an hour of completely normal nearly 4-year old behavior. I can't begin to tell you what that means to me. And of course I can't expect you to understand yet, since I still haven't gotten into all of those issues. I will though. Soon.

In any case, we were supposed to have brunch with friends tomorrow but I think we'll take a rain check. I don't want Maya to overdo it. We've got (stupidly expensive and non-refundable) Dora tickets for the afternoon, so if we're only going to do one activity we'd both rather it be that one.

Keep your fingers crossed...