Yesterday was the Mid-Autumn Festival, when the moon is at its fullest and Chinese people traditionally spend the evening sitting outside, admiring the moon (and writing poetic homages to it back in the day), drinking tea and eating mooncakes.

My parents came over in the afternoon brought a box of assorted mooncakes. When Allie awoke from her afternoon nap, we took the little beaver (she decided on Sunday to start gnawing on her very expensive crib’s front and side rails, and has taken the paint off and a few layers of wood, as well) out for an early dinner at a local Chinese restaurant near the lake. We didn’t get lake views like we do at our favorite sushi restaurant, but Japanese has to stand aside for Chinese yesterday.

Food was good, altho all the dishes were a bit on the sweet side. My dad recognized his motherland dialect in the conversations between the staff, so he figured the restaurant is Shanghai-style. That explains the sweetness. If you guys like Shanghai-style Chinese food, visit Lakeside Chinese Cuisine (they don’t seem to have a website I can link).

Despite another epic nap of over 2 hours in length in the afternoon, Allie was able to nurse to sleep and be laid gently in her crib, which I was grateful for, because if she has to be put in her crib awake again, I know she’ll end up eating more of her crib. While I was nursing, Mr. W ran out to Babies R Us and picked up a crib rail protector called the Easy Teether by Leach Co., which is basically just a fabric wrap that velcros around the front rail of the crib. It probably won’t stop Allie from chewing on the crib, but it’ll keep her from ingesting more of the paint and wood splinters. The deep gouges and damage she was able to do in just one day, 2 naps’ worth of time spent in her crib, were pretty horrific. I wish I’d been prepared for this ahead of time. There’s no “touch-up” possible for what was done; when she gets older and that piece converts into her full-size bed’s footboard, that entire piece will have to be sanded down and refinished. Glad we paid more for the hardwood option instead of soft pine. =P The very light color of exposed wood, however, makes me just a little suspicious.

Anyway, after leaving Allie and medicating the cat, who promptly made himself throw up his meds so that I had to readminister more meds, Mr. W and I went outside to take a peek at the full moon. We probably only sat there for 30 seconds before I went back in and ate a miniature mooncake with some red wine. I cut another small mooncake in half, keeping in mind what college roommie Diana had warned me about how bad mooncakes are health-wise, chatted with the stepkidlet and her boyfriend who had come back from the grocery store and were eating at the kitchen table, then read myself to sleep.

Next year, maybe Allie would be able to stay up until the moon comes out and could join us for a taste of mooncake. It’s fun to think about how dramatically different things will be a year or two from now, just as it was fun, when I was pregnant, to think about how different things this year would be from last year. (Boy, did I underestimate “different” in my naivete, tho.)