This past mother’s day was my first on-call rotation at Google. I spent the day on my laptop fighting fires while Domingo watched Nicole. Not quite the relaxing day I had hoped for. The following weekend I was still on call, so we decided to do a “make-up” mothers day the weekend after, Memorial day weekend. I opted for a trip to the zoo, as it would be fun for Nicki and a chance for me to play with my camera.

The weather looked to be the nicest Sunday so we had a relaxing low key Saturday. I was newly into the second trimester, and while feeling overall better, was not sure how well I’d hold up. Turned out the day of rest leading up to our zoo trip was all I needed. I felt great, despite the weather turning out 10 degrees hotter than expected.

Munch!

Whatcha Looking At?

Nicki, on the other hand, did not fair to well. She wasn’t acting like herself, preferring to stay in the stroller. We thought it was the heat, or possibly she was intimidated by all the large animals. When we had difficulties getting her to eat or drink we knew something was wrong. We cut our zoo trip short. A few hours later she had a full blown fever and rash.

Domingo and I took turns staying home with her this past week. The fever went away quickly, but the rash lingered until Friday so we couldn’t return to day care. We had figured she didn’t get much out of the zoo given how sick she was, but she would show us pictures of the giraffe in her books and say “‘raffe eat!” (The giraffes at the zoo was eating, the one in the picture book was not.) She suddenly seemed much more interested in the animals around her, even just the squirrels and birds which she’s seen countless times. The zoo clearly left a lasting impression, despite the fact that she wasn’t feeling well.

The weather promised to behave a little better this weekend, so we decided to give the zoo another go even when we had just been. This time Saturday looked to be the best day for our make-up, make-up mother’s day.

Nicki loved it. She would have spent the entire day at the giraffes if she could. We could only get her to leave with the promise of fries/lunch. We did manage a quick peek at the elephants, but then it was back to the giraffes. When she woke up after her nap after we returned home she immediately asked for the zoo.

Well, Hello!

Alas this time Mommy didn’t fair so well. Even though we didn’t stay out much longer than our prior trip, I was tired, achy and could feel my head throbbing by the time we returned home. I took a nap while Nicki was napping and woke up with a full blown migraine.

Lesson learned: I need a day to recover from the work week before we do anything remotely taxing.

On a quasi related side note, that old adage about upgrading your lenses before upgrading your camera is also starting to really sink in. So far the only lenses I’ve bought have been primes. I’m still using my kit lens when I need the range. The lack of color depth and crispness when compared to the good lenses is starting to become extremely apparent to me. Alas, other than price I’m not sure how to tell “good glass” from bad. I loath the idea of buying expensive as a proxy for quality. It goes against every frugal bone in my body. Time to do more consumer research!

Posted in Family Life, Photography