Easter Sundays

What's in a hanky? Minutes of fun "blowing" our nose then cleaning the floor, table, or chairs with the snot. Thankfully Pippa's nose blowing skills are low, she mostly blows air out and scrunches her face. What does this have to do with blogging? Every time I start typing she toddles over to wipe the keyboard with her hanky. Expect weird spellings and missing words.

Easter has come and gone and we experienced it twice. The week before Easter was our family basket hunt. Skip frustrated me again with his superb hiding skills--even after I gave him specific instructions to make it easy. When I think of hiding Easter baskets or Easter eggs I think it should all be visible from 2 or more angles. Skip thinks visibility is for the weak and perfects his camouflaging skills with my delicious treats. This came back to haunt him when I won the egg war. Mwahahahaha.



Pippa was excited right up to the moment we tried to tape her finding her basket. Then it was screams and wails as I dragged her to the hiding spot. Once she spotted the bright yellows and pinks she realized only good things could be ahead. Somehow the Easter bunny brought easy to open plastic eggs and she enjoyed opening each one looking for chocolate. In fact any time she sees an egg now she opens it expecting chocolate or jelly beans (I've tried healthier snacks and they just get tossed aside).

On Easter Day (when the rest of you celebrated) Pippa and I found some eggs in the yard! Pippa's shaky walking had improved in that week, but not quite enough for the uneven terrain in our yard. She preferred to have me place her at each egg where she promptly pulled the egg apart and its contents fell in muddy grass. Fun! Her walking continues to improve and she's now able to walk anywhere when she's motivated. I've thought about redoing Easter one more time...but really it takes some effort and I'm  furiously writing a couple of research papers. So until next year!

Oh, and all that nose blowing from earlier finally produced something. Yay.

Egg Wars

Leave it to the Greeks to inspire a friendly competition during a celebratory religious holiday, like the egg wars on Easter. My marriage into a Greek family put this tradition on proud display last night. And I had a vendetta.

Those beautifully dyed eggs the Easter Bunny hides in baskets and yards are used as weapons. Two people head off, one holding an egg in defense while the other uses an egg to strike. The crushed egg is thrown to the side and the victor looks for a new victim. This continues until one solitary egg is left unscathed and is then preserved until the following year. Rumor mandates that the victor will have a year of love, health, and luck by doing so.

Last year I dominated Skip. My winning egg taunted him with it's precision and strength. Then I made a rookie move and retired the winning egg for the final battle. This was the rationale: The winning egg had struck several blows and I was certain it had a hairline fracture. The final battle was between my winning egg and MY second string egg. So really I had already won. But in the final battle, I gave Skip the winning egg and I used the back up. Skip won and somehow, despite my previous record, he claimed the title.

This year I was ready to destroy him, however his parents were here and the reigning Greek (his mom) kept court. She made sure no funny business went down and kept it light hearted. That's one version of what happened. Here's the other.

We gave Skip a bum egg to begin with. His name was on it so he had to use it, but after the first round he was free to pick his next egg. He raffled through the pile and found an egg with a reinforced end and some bumps on it...or an eggtooth! Papou went down. Yai Yai went down and when he got to me, Skip gave Pippa the famed egg. Pippa crushed me and she went on to wipe out the remaining eggs.



 I suppose I gave her my beginner's luck.

Happy Easter!