Uber-sick

I want to finish writing about our trip to Shanghai, but life keeps happening, darn it. This week I was deathly ill for a while. It turned out to be a 24-hour stomach poisoning of death. I'm not sure what it was I ate, but I've narrowed it down to two possible culprits. Our Ayi made us some liang cai (Chinese salad, basically), and I saw her put some tap water into the dressing. Penny also ate a bunch of it, and she wasn't sick, so it was probably the raw eggs in the muffin batter I munched on as I made muffins. I haven't felt that horrible since I had mono in 2004... also while in China. Anyway.
Having kids around while you're sick adds a whole new level of horridness. Thankfully, the girls felt wonderful, but unfortunately, the girls felt wonderful. I took Penny downstairs to play with her friends in the morning. This was before I realized I was feeling worse and worse, not better. So we went back upstairs, and over the course of the day, Penny watched "Wally" twice and "Beauty and the Beast" once. Then she took a delightfully long nap, and I was able to lie prostrate on my bed and moan. By some miracle, Meimei took two long naps and was asleep for most of the day. However, by the time she woke up in the afternoon, I wasn't able to sit up and play with her. I'd already called Kevin to come home, but he would still be about 45 minutes. I rolled over on my bed and began to use my greatest resource: my community.
When we first moved into our apartment building, it had only been open for a few months, and there weren't very many people living here. I was pretty bummed about it, but then I began to meet the people who do live here, and slowly people began to move in. Nowadays, Penny has 4 or 5 little friends her age, and there's a large group of German women. We all see each other every morning at breakfast, and ever since I've had Naomi, everyone has been telling me to call them if I needed anything.
So I called. I had my German friend Connie come take Meimei until Kevin came home. It took a few tries to explain this over the phone. At first she thought I was someone from the front desk. Yeah, her English isn't so hot. But my German is uber-nonexistent, so she trumps me on that. Connie finally understood me and came to grab the baby.
When Kevin came home, he went and picked up Meimei, whom they apparently didn't want to give back. She is, as they say, zuker-zuss. (See, I speak German!)
Kevin took both girls, and they played downstairs all afternoon and evening with the other toddlers and their parents. They ate cookies, chips, and candies for snack, and when Kevin took Penny to McDonald's for dinner, she came back licking an ice cream cone. Kevin would make a terrible mom, and I told him that. But he makes an awesome dad.
In the evening, he and our neighbor, Dan, gave me a blessing, then I went to sleep. In the morning, I had a headache, probably from not eating or drinking much of anything the day before, but otherwise I felt pretty okay. Back up to 75%. A passing grade, but nothing to feel proud of.
The girls didn't sleep so well on day 2, but you know what? They slept so well on day 1 I really couldn't have asked for anything more.