EASTERING

Easter! Very Eastery around these parts. Much Easter doings. And I hate to say this about my child, whom I love, but Geneva is ruining everything.

Not everything! Today she has been hilarious and winsome and we went to see the Easter bunny and he didn't get there until 11:30 and we had been in line for an HOUR and she had been awake for FIVE HOURS by then and she was a delight.

Both of my girls lost their minds with excitement when the bunny rolled up and I wish these photos captured that, captured Geneva doing her delighted that's-an-animal scream (she has literally just figured out what animals are and GUYS ARE YOU SEEING THIS) and Eleanor laughing like a maniac and then just hugging the bunny's arm rull hard.

But yesterday! We made paska! This is literally the only moment, when we're mixing up our paska sponge, where we're doing A Thing and Geneva isn't underfoot waaaaaaailing because her life is so awful.

I tried rigging our infant carrier up for a back-carry but it's too small and nobody was comfortable and we lasted maybe ten minutes.

So, good thing Eleanor has gotten really competent. Kind of? 'Use the metal thingie to hold the egg, Eleanor, and then lower it into the dye.'

'Yes, I do it like this.'

*plok*

We made Disney Princess eggs and those wrap-it things are SUPER HARD TO USE but whatever, Eleanor was delighted.

We had an hour to kill before we needed to add things to our paska sponge and it was literally only sunny for an hour but we took that hour to the park.

Geneva is like, What is this, this is not snow, I do not understand this.

Eleanor's Tante Leah taught her to crack eggs while we were in Palm Springs, and now she is an egg-cracking whiz and literally all she wants to do is crack eggs into a bowl so good thing paska has like six eggs in it.

And then we put stickers on our princessy eggs to finish them off.

And then we ate a bunch. Eleanor eats maybe ten hard-boiled eggs a year because she's kind of not into them, and fully half of those are eaten around Easter.

And then everyone went down for a nap and I hid some eggs. And then Eleanor woke up, and I came into her room with a basket and she's all, What is that basket for? And I'm like, Come out into the living room and you'll see. And she's like, OooOOOOooo, because Eleanor loves a mystery. And a hunt! There's one!

And there's another!

Her prizes were mostly stickers and little toys. There were four mini eggs total, and she gave two of them to me. She is a treat. SPEAKING OF TREATS. Then Geneva woke up and the agony continued. I hope that every time I say 'And then we did this' you are adding 'while Geneva clung to my leg and wept, or sat in her chair and wailed because she didn't want to eat her food because she was on some weird hunger strike yesterday.'

You're fooling no one with that face, Geneva. NO ONE.

And then we made our paska buns and decorated our paska buns

and ate our paska buns for dinner because WHO IS GONNA COOK when you're the only grown-up in the house.

And then Geneva went to bed and Eleanor and I hung out and facetimed my parents and Eleanor put plastic eggs on her feet and then laughed uproariously because it's the best joke she knows. And I love doing holiday things with her SO MUCH, and Geneva is just at the worst age right now, where she can't do any of the things but she can't do NOTHING because she's not a NEWBORN and she's teething and she's needy and I love her so much, if only for the way she pops a bean in her mouth and then covertly spits it out and waves her arms around to distract you from the fact that she never actually ate the bean. She's a cuddly dumpling and she's going through a rough time and I want to be there for her, but I also just want to do all these fun things with my other kid whom I'm kind of really starting to like again right now. HAVING TWO CHILDREN IS HARD.

Baby chicks, on the other hand, are super soft.