Nasty Habit

Fancy a smoke?

What’s in a Name?

I was drawing on the sidewalk with Eva and I spelled out her name for her.  She immediately came over, drew a line through it and said, “I crossed out Eva because that’s not my name.”

She then asked me to write her real name and I obliged.

She reminded me about sixteen more times that her name is in fact Dexter and not Eva.  When will I get that through my thick skull?

I wonder how hard it is to get a new birth certificate…

Birthday Boy

My favorite husband turned 41 on Sunday.  Gasp!  The ol’boy still melts my heart though.  I suppose I’ll keep him around a few more years.

I was sick with a head cold on his birthday so it wasn’t the exciting bash that I had initially planned but it turned out to be a nice day anyway.  I bought him a couple of presents:

A replacement CD of his favorite Marc Cohn album after I accidentally sent his other one to live with my sissy in Idaho.

And a nerd toy…some robot ball called a Sphero.  Look at his excitement!  It’s like he’s turning 12 and not 41.

Let’s not forget that it’s not Michael’s birthday unless there’s chocolate cream pie.

He opted to light a fire in the backyard and have tin foil dinners for his birthday meal.  The fire was fun for approximately two minutes.  The wind kept shifting direction and blowing smoke in our faces regardless of where we sat.  We roasted a couple of mallows and waited patiently for the dinners to be done, then we bolted back inside to escape the billowing assaults on our eyes.  Two days later and my hair still smells like a campfire.  (Maybe I should try washing it.) 

The idea was romantic, the reality was tortuous.  But it was still a nice day.

Happy Birthday, Mykey!

Owie

Do you want me to hurt your feelings? 

You’re ugly.

Just kidding.  I think you’re semi-attractive.  But I still want to make your heart hurt so you can have some empathy for me.

We went to the tulip farm last week.  Let's wander back and gaze at pictures from 2013 when we visited the farm for the first time:

Now come back to reality and look at our trip last week.

Owie.  My heart hurts.

Fancy Pants

What's wrong with this picture? 

The baby headband tightly squeezing my child’s oversized head? 

That my kid is clearly eating chocolate chips with her breakfast? 

Maybe it’s that someone left the utensil drawer ajar.

Perhaps it’s that Eva is using the trash can as a table.  The trash can.

Yup.  That’s the kind of mother I am.  Just building up that ol’immune system. 

Happy Easter!

The heavens showed mercy on us and the sun came out for Easter weekend.  Saturday and Sunday were perfectly sunny until Sunday evening.  When the rain began to pour down again I felt my senses recoil in sadness.  Where are you, summer?

We went to a community Easter egg hunt on Saturday which was uncomfortably crowded and chaotic.  There were so many people that we couldn’t even see Eva hunting for eggs.  None of the adults could see their kids and the crowd became somewhat hostile.  I naively thought it would be a calm gathering since you had to buy tickets to get in and there was a cap to the number of tickets sold.  Apparently the cap was infinity because it was a madhouse.  The swarms of greedy kids and even greedier parents didn’t react well with my social anxiety.  Eva was oblivious and had a wonderful time.  Her only disappointment was when she informed us that the Easter bunny was just a woman in a costume.  Sorry, Eva.  But she scored a lot of candy at the egg hunt and that seemed to appease her.  I assume she had to knock a few kids over to come away with such a haul.  Good girl. 

The REAL Easter bunny visited us on Sunday and left Eva with even more candy and a new princess watch.  She promptly put it on and then announced the time every minute for a few hours.  At bedtime she took off her watch and said, “I’m going to put this in your jewelry box so it can be safe.  I’ll put it by your special jewelry.”  Her watch is now part of the special jewelry in our house.  I love it.

We rounded out the day by dying eggs and then having our friends over for a pot roast dinner and games.  I rounded out the evening by eating an entire bag of Cadbury Mini Eggs.  My stomach was rounded out by bedtime.  It was a nice day.

Happy Easter!

Spring Break

Want to have a fabulously fantastic Spring Break?  Invite your sissy over.  The weather will suck most of the week.  You’ll go to the coast and it will feel like Antarctica.  Your daughter will get pummeled by a wave and shiver and cry from the cold, wailing, “I never want to go to the beach again!  Except in the summer!”  You'll have to eat your lunch shivering in the back of the van but you’ll still have a fabulously fantastic time.  You will watch movies and eat popcorn every night, you’ll go shopping and watch your niece change her pants in the parking lot while a stranger looks on, you’ll play Tetris and Dr. Mario, eat crepes for breakfast, go to the temple, sleep in, and laugh and laugh and laugh. 

It will be fabulously fantastic and it will be over far too quickly.

Can’t it be Spring Break every week?