Oh, Eden, we miss you!
We were lucky enough to have my niece here for most of her spring break last week. Cece was crushed when we dropped Eden back off at the aiport for her flight home. Fortunately, we'll get to see her again in just two months when we head to Yosemite together. But I suppose to a 4-year-old, those two months will pass a lot slower than they will for an old fogey like me. ;)
Poor Eden was unlucky enough to catch a miserable cold from Marino during her visit (and then Nico caught it, too) -- so her vacation ended up being a lot more low-key than we'd anticipated. Most days she and I would stay up far too late (except for those nights when I accidentally fell asleep while putting Cece to bed!) and since she was sick and is free from parental responsibilities, she had the luxury of sleeping in until well into the afternoon ... usually just as Nico was going down for a lengthy nap. None of this was very conducive to getting out & doing much of anything. But we DID manage to get some scrapbooking done like we'd hoped, had some good talks, and took plenty of pictures. :)
We also had an early Easter egg hunt last Thursday after staying up till after midnight coloring the eggs the night before. Can someone please explain to me why every last one of the 36 we dyed ended up with two horizontal white rings around them? I seriously need to google that. I've never had that happen before. Nico is still too young to help "shoot the eggs" but Eden and Cece had a great (though intensely competitive) time scouting them out.
"Shoot the eggs" is our little inside joke. Back when I was about Cece's age, I went to my first Easter egg hunt at my grandmother's house. All week leading up to Easter my mom had been telling me how much fun I'd have at the hunt -- but apparently didn't give too many specifics. So Easter day we were all over at Grandma's, eating & visiting, and I piped up with, "So when are we gonna shoot the eggs?" :)
Guess who's eight months old today? Yep. The sick little boy in our house. The poor baby's got SUCH a cough & his nose just won't stop running. Benadryl and the cool-mist humidifier seemed to help him sleep much better last night -- but we'll all be glad when this bug moves on.
For such a little boy, he's amazingly daring & brave. He'll try to climb anything, and doesn't flinch if he takes a fall or bonks the crap out of his forehead (which he does several times a day). We keep joking that we should've named him George -- as in Curious George. But if you wanna scare the crud outta him, turn on the vacuum. The kid is terrified of them. Most every parenting book I've ever read has touted the calming effect of the white noise of a vacuum; but my kids are not your typical kids. (Yes, Cece was vacuum-phobic, too.) Poor Nico literally trembles with fear and emits the most ear-piercing, plaintive screams whenever I turn on the Hoover. Unless he outgrows this fear soon, I can see it working to my advantage during the terrible twos ... "Nicolas, stop hitting your sister. Don't make me get the vacuum!" (Before anyone calls CPS, I'm only kidding!)
The Easter bunny mercifully brought only candy, books, and gardening tools for the kids -- no vacuums. Not even a Dirt Devil. (Phew!) Cece was excited to find her basket this morning, and spent time counting the precise number of bags of Jelly Bellys, chocolate robin eggs, and whopper eggs she received, while Nico was happy just to chew on his plastic garden trowel. :)
Oddly enough, it SNOWED here the night before last. It's already melted, but today was a very cold Easter. I knew it was bound to turn cold again as soon as I saw Marino putting all our winter coats away for the season. What was he thinking? He'd better not even THINK about setting up the hammock! ;)
Happy Easter, happy spring -- cold as it may be today.
