Easter, Part II: Egg-cellent Treats!

Isabel loved her Easter basket and seemed to easily grasp the concept of the Easter Bunny despite never having discussed him before. Her favorite basket goodies have been the Wizard of Oz stickers and the bath tub crayons.

Kyle, Dad, and Pam spent the morning entertaining Isabel. She was cute in her blue Easter dress. They dyed and decorated hard boiled eggs, while managing to keep the dress clean. Meanwhile, I fixed my first Easter lunch.


Not only was it the first time I've made Easter lunch, it's the first time I've made ANY large meal entirely by myself. Things didn't start off well when, on the previous day, my first attempt at bread in the breadmaker machine resulted in a lump of wet flour. If at first you don't succeed, try, try again! Round two fared much better, and we ended up with a pretty good lunch, if I do say so myself.

After lunch, we headed down to the basement where I'd hidden eggs the night before. Isabel made up for the previous day's fiasco, finding 21 eggs in record time. Afterwards she happily sat, surrounded by her adoring fans, opening each and every egg and exclaiming over the treats within.

Easter, Part I: Egg-regious Behavior

We were lucky enough to have my Dad and Pam visit us over Easter. Kyle was away in Nashville on Saturday helping out with a Nascar event (good lord, I thought he already followed every sport in existence, but he managed to dig up one he'd missed), so it was up to the three of us to get Isabel to a city-sponsored egg hunt. Like her mother, Isabel is not really a morning person, so it was a challenge to get her dressed and in the car in time for the egg hunt.

By the time she was in the car, though, she wanted to find some eggs. The event started at 10 and we were there by 10:02. Unfortunately that was one minute, 30 seconds too late; another parent told us that within 30 seconds after the start, all eggs had been found. Rookie mistake! Meanwhile, Isabel was whining ever more loudly, "I want my eggs! I want my eggs!". What was an anxious family to do?
Well, if you're the Keepers/Pandos, you cheat. Boxes had been made available for parents to recycle the empty eggs. While I distracted Isabel, Dad and Pam absconded with some "borrowed" eggs and hid them. It was cold and miserable out, so Isabel chose to direct me to pick up the eggs on her behalf. Well, we thought we'd managed to fool her, but she started with the whining again - "I want my treats! I want my treats!".

Crap! The stolen eggs were empty! We rushed back to the car, drove home, and I yelled, "Take your time getting her out of the car!". I rushed around the house trying to find stuff to fill the eggs with. Whatever it was, it was pretty crappy. Luckily Isabel is too young to know any better and was satisfied with our charade.

Adventures in Potty Training

Isabel has been making steady progress with her potty training. She's quite a pissing expert now! Many times she'll disappear into the bathroom, take off her own diaper, and a few minutes later shout, "I pee pee for you!"

We still have a long way to go though. Without getting too detailed, so far she's only comfortable with liquids. Also, she's fascinated with cleaning her potty, and with dumping its contents into the adult toilet. Since she doesn't have a steady hand yet, well... you can imagine the consequences.

I wish we could take credit for all the progress she's made so far, but truthfully we owe a lot to Isabel's daycare. Her teacher works with the kids on this every day, and just having older, potty trained kids around to emulate seems to be a big incentive for Isabel.

Cabin Fever

Between 12 and 18 inches of snow fell in central Ohio over the last few days, so we've been stuck inside. We've come up with a few ways to entertain ourselves indoors...

• Read books
  
• Jump on the furniture


• Take a bath


• Bake cookies


• Read the same books again (and again and again...)


• Roast marshmallows in the fireplace


• Sunday night is movie night!
  

Jungle Time

We are so sick of winter already! After enduring another week of snow, sleet, freezing rain, and ice, we racked our brains for a way to get out of the house. We decided the Franklin Park Conservatory was the way to beat the winter blues. For me, the Pacific Island area of the FPC is the only place in Ohio to feel truly warm during winter... surrounded by waterfalls, lush green plants, and balmy humid air, you can pretend you've gone to Hawaii for the day.