mamapants

Hot! Sweaty! Wonderful!

No really, it's lovely here. It's about 85 degrees, and sunny, and my fabulously fabulous new garden is - dare I say - thriving. Now that the nights are longer and it's light until about midnight, we can sit outside and watch the mosquitoes eat the baby. We've been using kid-friendly Off!* wipes on her, and while I appreciate the lower level of DEET, I'm just not sure it's effective against bugs who can arm-wrestle with you while you put it on.

* Why is it that items targeted at younger people have exclamation points in their names? Off! Yahoo! It's like we're not listening, so someone has to yell it at us. Because of pressure from parents like me, Ikea will be changing their name to Stop Eating the Coffee Table, Because It's the Only One We've Got, It's Too Far to Go Get Another One, and We're Too Cheap to Get a Nice One!

My coughing has gotten better, except at night, when I'm still pretty messy. This means I haven't been sleeping well, which means I haven't really been inspired, funny, or entertaining (and now you say, "But when are you that otherwise?" and we laauugh.) What amazes me is how well ROB sleeps, even when I'm bent double, taking huge gasping breaths and barking like a seal. It must be something residents pick up when they're trying to sleep in the hospital - when people are whooping their way toward death right next to you, you just mumble something about "antibiotics in the morning" and roll over.

We're not exactly good churchy folk, so to celebrate Easter we're going to the NC Zoo, a mere 85 miles away, to give Mademoiselle her first look at wild things other than Astrid. ("Mere" is totally relative. Compared to our recent escapades to Indiana and Hilton Head, Asheboro is just a hop.) It should be pretty cool; the maps seem to include all the necessary animals - although if you have monkeys, what else do you need? - and all the parking and shuttles and such are free. And after filling the gas tank yesterday ($44!) that freeness is enough to make me sing hallelujah, so we might have a little religion after all.

We're also going to see the Big Bunny at the mall so that Norah can actually wear the precious Easter dress Rob's mom sent from Philadelphia and be photographed doing something conventionally Easterish. This is, of course, pending her acceptance of being held by a giant rabbit; she's just started to experience stranger anxiety, so something with plastic eyes bigger than her face might not be entirely okay. But we will try, and we will send the photo to the grandparents, and we will be GOOD PEOPLE.

Happy Easter to you, whatever you do about it. Mmmwa.

Posted in: on 4/15/2006 at at 12:31 PM