Siggraph

Not much in the way of pictures here, because, of course, I forgot to bring the camera to siggraph. Ian came along with me, which *seemed* like a good idea at the time. Alla also brought her little boy, who was about the same age. The grand plan was to get a baby sitter for them in the hotel room while we went to the conference. The wonderful folks at siggraph (thank you!) had secured us not just a suite, but a suite with two rooms for our little ones to chase each other around in. And with the club just down the hallway, so free, easy to get breakfast and snacks. Despite a bit of kurfufle when Alla went to check in, the first part of the week went well. We had a wonderful woman taking care of both of them, and they had a grand time playing together. We took both the babies out to dinner, along with many of our best friends, to celebrate a friend's birthday. Yoav had the decency to fall asleep, but my little monster just kept going, and going, and... so ended up walking him back to the hotel a bit earlier. 

Tuesday night, though, it all fell apart. I put Ian in the Mai Tai carrier, took him down to what was going to be a dinner meeting, and two blocks before I got there he covered me with everything he'd eaten all day. Managed to (sort of) get the two of us cleaned up in the (dirty) restaurant bathroom enough to get in a cab and get us both home. Where, of course, he continued to empty his poor little tummy out and run a high fever. (No sleep for me! He refused to lay down.) By morning he seemed better, and even ate a little. We left both the kids with the (new - our other baby sitter couldn't cover all four days) baby sitter, warning her that he'd been sick.

Well, Alla comes back to find out that both Yoav & Ian had been throwing up all day and the babysitter *didn't call*. She was furious, and rightly so. Poor little guys couldn't keep anything down. We ended up using pretty much every towel in the place. I have to say, though, that the folks in the hotel were *amazingly* helpful, with everything from after-hours laundry, carrying food, getting us towels, finding a doctor... (The Omni, if anyone's ever in downtown LA with kids.) It actually ended up being pretty funny, with both of us dressed mostly in towels, in and out of the shower/bathtub, and everything in the place covered in towels.

Called Bill and found out that Isabella had the same thing. She has, however, figured out how to get to the *sink* when she's feeling sick. I can't tell you how much better that is! "Mommy, I have to throw up!" followed by a mad dash to the sink. Better than wearing it...

Poor little guy seemed well enough on Thursday that I actually took him down to the convention center. We played in the back of the room - he chased balls and put things in coffee cups and climbed on the stroller - while I made some attempt to listen to the talks. Ian was pretty quiet; Alla tried the same thing with Yoav but he seemed more inclined to announce his presence to the world, so she had to keep taking him out. Takeo and his wife was wandering around with their 1yr old as well, so it was quite the baby-occupied siggraph. Had one nasty, bad-tempered person say something bad to us, but everyone else was very understanding, and lots of folks seemed to genuinely enjoy having the little people around.

Did manage to make it to the wrap party (thanks Ryan, Bill, and Frank for helping out!) and even managed to get something to eat. But poor little guy wasn't feeling well, so we went home early.

Flew back home on Friday - once again, I have to say that I am very grateful for the number of helpful people out there who help with carrying car seats and other stuff. Ian was fine on the way home, but then I got sick the next day - and then Bill got sick, and then Ian got sick *again*. Full day's contents all over me and the big blue chair. So we ended up missing our trip to Henry Cowell (oh, yeah, grandma was sick too, as was Isabella a second time around). Even went so far as to take Ian to the doctor - nothing to worry about, of course.

Bill had built a puppet theater for Isabella out of legos (hey, how come no picture? - ok, found one) while I was gone. She apparently did a full-blown puppet show, with various stuffed animals playing parts (sea animals and mermaids, I think it was).