Life: Idiotropic

Yesterday I ran some errands in the Netherlands to grab a few things before Mom arrived today. It was a little cold and overcast, but not horrible, so I took all three little girls and took off to the Sittard market to get fruit, cheese, and flowers. The market is in a pedestrian only zone, so parking is not horribly far, but not close either and you have to walk a few blocks. It was Queen's Day. I didn't know that until I tried to go to my favorite Dutch chocolate shop to find it closed. Then all the homes had the Dutch flag flying. It looked like a painting from one of the old Dutch masters with all the red, blue, and white flapping in the wind. Anyway... I did make it to the market, parked in my normal spot and started to walk. I was surprised to see large groups of people there as it is usually pretty quiet on a Saturday afternoon, but then I noticed saw the junk. On either side of Putstraat in front of the local shops on the street itself, people (mostly kids, actually) had set up blankets with old toys, cups, and other miscellaneous garage sale items all labeled with prices. I looked a little, but it was average junk... nothing special to find. We got to the market and I ordered my cheese. Luci gave me a heart attack by walking around the other side of the cheese truck while I was talking to the lady. I turned around to give a slice to her and she was gone. So the lady kindly came out and stood with Arianna and Elise while I yelled for Luci (yes, the crazy American lost her child), and ran around. I found Luci all alone on the other side of the truck about halfway down the market row. Leashes have never seemed very appealing, but they gain ground with me daily. Luci may get one for her birthday. Anyway... it was just as I found Luci that the flood waters started. Elephant sized drops of rain came pounding down and, of course, in the midst of an open air market, there is little escape. We tried to huddle together and ran from the edge of one awning to another until we got down to the flower vender. Arianna and I picked out flowers and Luci tried to convince me to buy a small dog that was sitting there unattended. Then we walked as quickly as we could back to the car getting wetter by the minute. Elise was soaked. We all were. We dried by the time we'd finished all of our errands - thankfully. Apparently there was some party for Queen's day. I'll have to find out more about it and be ready for next year.
Today was the 90 minute drive to Brussels to pick up Mom and Jeff at the airport. The airport is remarkably small for the area and easy to navigate. Their flight ended up landing early, so they were already there waiting for us. We drove them down to the Grand Place to walk around and have lunch. It rained. And rained. And then stopped, and rained again. In spite of the shower, we still managed to see the grand place, take them to our favorite chocolate shop, and have a nice lunch at a Greek restaurant where Elise left her favorite bunny. There was a nice outdoor craft market just outside the Grand Place with a lot of beautiful things including oil paintings of the area. There were jugglers and artists in the center of the place too and although I didn't see them, we heard a wonderful choir singing. Restaurant workers as before stood outside of their doors and beckoned us in telling us that the tables were ready and the food was good. The Grand Place itself is just too much. I love it and want to see it again on a nice day, but there is just too much to see. Each building is so beautiful and intricately carved and detailed with gold and statues and fleurishes that it is impossible to really take it in. Just before we left, we all got hot waffles. The kids ate theirs sitting near the stand. A girl nearby took their picture. Probably a tourist. It's funny. Now our girls will be in someone else's scrapbook album. I took a picture too. They were awfully cute.

The drive home was nice. The light is lasting until almost 10 now each night. The canals are beautiful and everything is green and growing here now. We drove under a canal and so I took a photo. It looks like just another bridge almost. Hard to believe that there's a canal there and a boat could float by on top of you.

We head off to soccer practices each Monday and Wednesday. I'll be glad when this is over. I signed both Arianna and Luci up together and both played well the first practice, but Luci hasn't played since and Arianna is still tempermental. Sometimes she loves it and sometimes she doesn't want to go. Elise, on the other hand, loves it making it very hard to keep her off the field with her own soccer ball. Last time we took the Gillrath train, Elise got a small soft soccer ball. She sleeps with it sometimes now. It's her favorite toy. Arianna had a soccer game today. Luci suited up and cheered for her team. Arianna played part of the game, but not much. I think she's coming around though. This last practice was phenomenal. She was great. I think with time, she'll enjoy it a lot more. I am really enjoying the team itself. Arianna is fortunate to be with some great kids and a great coach. The team is split pretty evenly between Americans and French Canadians and so far, all the parents are really nice.

Thursday was Canadian night at our International Women's dinner. We had BBQ hamburgers, chicken skewers and LOTS of potatoe and macaroni salad. The music was quiet enough to converse and the only entertainment was a brief, yet humorous skit about how much Canadians like to BBQ and will BBQ in the snow, ice, sun, power outages, etc... It was a nice night to be out and just visit with friends. The USA representative for the IWC is moving, so I am the new rep for next year. I love it and am excited to have the opportunities to meet more ladies from all over. It will be fun!

This morning Tiara attended the straight A breakfast with the principal. It is always held at the International Dining hall where they get all the traditional American breakfast items plus a lot of breads, meats, and cheeses. Tiara was very excited to go and again, was the only student from her class with straight A's. Kirk and I went but sat at a table near her, but not too close to embarrass her. It was amusing to hear the conversations of the "smart" students... so normal, so kid. A couple boys argued about how a mouse could be inside-out and all the girls just giggled. The quiet principal sitting across from Tiara looked so completely bored, but he was very friendly.

Arianna, Luci, and Elise were able to play at the park by their school for two hours today after school while we waited for Tiara's honor roll assembly. It was fun to chat with the other moms and watch the kids. I met a very nice lady who just moved here from Italy and another very nice lady from Australia. Luci was also playing with her French-Canadian friend, Aiden. I love it. It still seems so special and fun to be here and to experience so many cultures all in one place.

Ballet night again... only with Elise. I went to my usual ice cream cafe in Sittard. Elise had ice cream. I had my usual coffee with egg liquor and whipped cream on the side. Yum. Then we had a nice walk . Behind most of the houses around the market are little pedestrian only passages where you can see people's gardens. It is a nice walk and some of the gardens are beautiful. t really feels like home there.

Spring is officially here marked with beautiful blue skies and a shower of floral confetti in the air. Some of the streets were covered in small white, yellow, and pink petals from nearby trees. It's beautiful here. The fields are getting ready for planting, more people are out and about, all the windows are decorated with flowers and ribbons, and it is finally above 50 degrees.

We celebrated its arrival with day after day of outside play. The kids had forgotten what outside looked like, I think. Luci still insists on bringing her coat everywhere even when it's warm... I think she still expects the shocking cold when she leaves the house.

We had two days at the park this week... on Wednesday we went to a new park with our Spanish friends and stayed there three hours playing. The language was absolutely no barrier for the kids. They all had a great time - even Tiara who is making friends with Beatriz. They know only a handful of words of eachother's languages, but still have a great time together. This park was nice with horse stables right next to it, so the kids enjoyed seeing the horses run around. On Friday we went back to the horse park for a couple hours in the morning, went home for lunch and rest, then took our friends to a park near our house that they hadn't been to before. It is huge and has a lot of different activities for all the age levels. We were there for over three hours, so the kids were absolutely exhausted at the end. They all had fun. About halfway into our fun, we heard some music and all the local kids took off running. Sure enough, an ice cream truck was driving by. This ice cream truck sold real Italian gelato - no prepackaged concoctions, just real, scooped ice cream put together right there. He did sundaes too. All the kids got a scoop - at 50E cents, there was no reason to say no and it was very good - just like gelato I've had before. The lemon is the best. Every playground that I've been to so far has been different. They are very creative and fun. Even my Spanish friends think that they are much better than the ones in Spain. There are swings that go in a circle like a carousel, swings that go up and down like a teeter totter with one person on a swing on one side and another on the other side. They have slopes with hills for riding small cars down, and tall bumpy slides, and swinging bridges, and tirolinos (I don't know the English word - you sit on it and then it goes really fast down a line, then comes back a bit.... like a chair lift on a slope). At the park on Friday the girls played with their Spanish friends, some German kids, and an Italian girl. I think the adults all enjoyed seeing the kids all together - 4 nationalities together on a tire swing all laughing and talking. It was very sweet.

Our backyard is getting more use now too and I think Tante Tinny is enjoying that. On Thursday evening we spent an hour in the backyard letting the kids run and visiting with Tante Tinny and other neighbors. The kids love Tinny and talk to her as if she understands. They all show off and act silly to get her attention. It is nice for them, with family so far away, to have an older adult here. They need that non-parental attention.

Ballet days are like a nice vacation for me now with the weather so nice. On Tuesday I took Elise with me and we took a walk around the green band in Sittard, a nice green space circling part of the markt square. Between the green space and the markt is this large space of gardens, all divided up with fences. Some are run down and some are cared for... some are planted with vegetables and flowers, and some contain sheep and chickens. It is interesting being right in the heart of the city so hear sheep bleeting, but somehow it fits. We went after our walk to get gelato at my favorite little cafe. The owner is Dutch, but speaks perfect English and is very friendly, so Elise had her ice cream and I talked with Ani. I really enjoy talking to the Dutch because they are so genuine and friendly and I always learn something. Ani's shop is my regular place now. Of course, I won't get ice cream all the time, but she makes very good coffee. When you order coffee here it comes with cream, sugar, and a cookie. At Ani's place, you also get a small cognac glass with egg liquor topped with whipped cream and a baby sized spoon to eat it with. It's very good. Egg liquor is very popular here. You will find it as a filling in chocolates and many other desserts - even as an ice cream flavor. I enjoy it, but the color and consistancy is just like egg yolk which, to me, is not very appealing.

Saturday was Arianna's first soccer game! We arrived at 0930 for the season's opening ceremonies that didn't start until 10. The girls got their uniforms. Luci will wear hers and cheer the team. She doesn't want to play which is fine with us - we just wanted her to learn a little and to be exposed to something new. I think she enjoys being at the practices and games even if she doesn't participate. Arianna, on the other hand, is very outgoing and is doing an amazing job! The coach was shocked. Her first game started at 1030. They kept wanting to sub her out to give her some rest, but she kept going and kept up the entire game. Many times she was right up in front of the herd. She didn't get much time with the ball, but she did throw it in once and that was fun for her. The game ended in our favor - 7 to 1. There is no official score keeping nor winners at this level because they all want to promote the fun and teamwork of the game, but the coaches and parents are keeping score... just because. Some of the players are very good for their ages. You can tell who has soccer playing parents and who doesn't. Some of these kids are headed towards stardom... they are really powerful players. I am pleasantly impressed with the ability of the coach to balance those "star players" with the others allowing all the kids a chance to get to the ball and encouraging them all to work together. I think Arianna will get a lot out of this. Her team is the Mighty Dragons and her coach is a Canadian. We love the team. All the players are great as are their parents and Coach Mohtadi is teaching them a lot.

After the game on Saturday we took the kids to Schinnen for hamburgers and let them play. It happened to be the day of the bazaar too so we went to see that. Every year GK and Schinnen have a bazaar and they are amazing. Mohammed was there. Apparently, he is THE guy to buy rugs from here. He has a shop in Konya, Turkey and has made friends with many of the AWACS folks, so he comes up here for all the bazaars and is the most trusted seller here. He is very nice and will teach you a lot about the rugs. I was amazed at how casual they are about them, walking on them, picking them up and just tossing them to the side. The silk rugs are so soft, they actually feel like rabbit fur, but a small silk rug - about 2'x3' is $1000. I was told that there is actually a law in Turkey that a weaver is only allowed to make one silk rug in his lifetime because the knots are so small and the weave is so tight, that you can go blind making too many of them. The market also had beautiful French antiques, Polish pottery and Polish crystal, Irish wool sweaters, Indian beaded shoes and purses, a lot of jewlery and leather, and beautiful Belgian tapestries. We didn't get anything, but it was fun to look and make mental notes for "next time."

Yesterday was the International Children's Festival at the base. This year the Turkish people here sponsored it. There was a lot of food - just the normal carnival stuff... hamburgers and hotdogs, cotton candy and popcorn. They had the big inflatable slides and trampolines for the kids, face painting, and other crafts and games. My girls never got away from the inflatables until the dancing started. They loved the big slide. Towards the end, a group of Turkish dancers came and performed three traditional dances in full costume. It was beautiful. Elise and I were watching them at first and pretty soon, my other three girls had all joined us. They all loved watching the dancers and listening to the music. Most of the music was live - played on traditional instruments there. The male dancers did some amazing dancing - very fast and with a lot of twirling and jumping. The contrast to the slow graceful movements of the brides made them even more spectacular.

























After the festival we went straight to Pee Wee's - an indoor play center for children - to attend Federica's birthday party. Federica is one of Luci's Italian friends. We were only one of three American families there. All of the Italian men speak English as they speak it at work here and the women speak a little. They were all very warm and friendly. We'd only been there a few minutes when they gave me a cannoli to try and some almond milk. In Italy, they have almond cream or paste that they sell in cans and then they use it for baking or can add water to it to make it into milk. It is very, very good. I think I'll have Kirk get some next time he goes to Italy. Federica's mom did all the cooking... there were the most delicious paninis I'd ever had, a pizza with paper thin flakey crust, quiche, lots of snacks like nuts and chips, and three desserts in addition to the cake. The birthday cake was the traditional Italian cream cake with a lemony custard filling. Perfect! I will definitely get that recipe. The party started like the traditional party. The kids all ran off and played, the adults sat around nibbling and talking. I learned a little about places to travel in Italy and tried to understand some of the Italian spoken. When it was time for cake we all gathered around and they lit a little sparkler in the cake. After, they insisted that all the adults gather together with the kids for a large group photo. Then when the kids had eaten and run off again to play, the adults all toasted with Asti. We were all there 3 1/2 hours - only leaving because the place was closing. Ahhh... I love the non-American parties when people are relaxed and don't run off at the two hour point. It is so much more natural and comfortable to sit and enjoy company without paying attention to the clock.

Anyway... today is back to normal. School is starting up again after 2 weeks of spring break, and I am having a quiet day with very little errands to run. Tonight is soccer practice again... M/W soccer and T/TH ballet... Saturday games... life with kids keeps me busy... until next blog... ciao!

Many eggs and several hunts ago I started a blog on Yahoo, but since no one seemed to receive my invitations to view it, I have decided to go somewhere else and try again. So... here I am. We'll see how this goes.

This Easter weekend we had great plans. Great plans, it seems, even in Europe are prone to hotel availability, illness, and weather. So, the original plan was to go spend three days and two wonderful nights in Leuden, Netherlands visiting the Keukenhoff Gardens, the cities of Delft and Gouda, and of course, the Mauritshuis Museum in Den Hague to see the Vermeer paintings. Our hotel search was amazing with so many beautiful options that were not horribly priced, but each one was booked entirely - the perils of last minute planning and spontaneity. In the midst of the hotel dilemma Kirk's ankle mysteriously swelled up and turned purple - a malady that is still plaguing him four days later, Tiara decided to eat two helpings of Velveeta queso dip for breakfast and had a very "green" afternoon with a bucket by her side, and a lovely group of dark grey clouds hurried their way from the Atlantic over to our neck of the woods for a visit. The entire region was plagued with spotty rain and some storms and so our trip was put off and our Easter became another quiet weekend in Gillrath.


On Friday, we discovered a new playground not far from our house that the kids loved. We were all going a bit stir crazy. It seems this last couple months the weather and our daily lives have gotten in the way of any real interesting outings, so I absolutely needed not only to get out, but to actually communicate with some sort of adult-type person. As good fortune would have it, our newly discovered park is a favorite of a wonderful woman that I'd met months ago. Our kids are on the same soccer team and we just hadn't had time to talk. We spend about an hour longer at the park that day because she and I were both enjoying the adult conversation. It was wonderful. Tiara stayed home with her bucket and missed pizza night. Today I casually mentioned Velveeta cheese and she appropriately made a horrible face and said "no thank you." I think she's been cured for life.




Post park play included the traditional, but oh,-so-horribly-messy, dying of Easter eggs. It was fun and the kids got creative. Later as we were putting them to bed and Kirk was reading the next chapter in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Elise quietly left the room. She came back about five minutes later, crawled up in my lap, and showed me her bright green hands saying "Easter egg." Yep, she's got "two" written all over her. I hope she survives it!




Saturday was a bit melancholy at first since I'd hoped to do something interesting and the weekend just wasn't looking too exciting, but Tiara had ballet at 1 and it was observation day, so we went to see her dance. She did a beautiful job. The class was pre-Pointe. Yvette teaches 90% in Dutch, but makes clarifications in English as needed. I learned some new Dutch vocabulary and Kirk pointed out the German words he recognized after class. It was nice to see and hear the class and I was particularly impressed with the foot/toe strengthening exercises that they were doing. Sittard, the city where Tiara dances, has become my little get-away. It's a very nice city with a nice market and city center, so I enjoy my times away taking Tiara to class and exploring. Kirk had never been to that part of the city, so it was nice on Saturday to take him there too. We walked all over the market and surrounding streets. I think he enjoyed that true European feel - the small pedestrian only shopping areas - the sounds and smells... it's all so beautiful. Almost every child we saw carried a big bunch of green cotton candy. Two girls dressed in pink bunny costumes were walking around the streets passing out chocolate eggs to all the children. My girls got two each. There were live musicians and a lot of holiday displays. It felt very festive. At the other end of the market we saw two tall teenage boys in brown bunny costumes passing out larger chocolate eggs. Once again, the girls were all too happy to accept the small gifts. We ended up having lunch at a Tapas restaurant on the markt, sitting right on in the open square people watching. We saw quite a few couples and groups of adults enjoying quite meals while their kids played soccer in the open area in front of us. It all felt very comfortable and safe. Afterwards we went to the Eis Cafe for some yummy Italian gelato. A very "sweet" end to our day.


Easter morning was delightful. The kids not only slept in, but forgot that it was Easter, so they woke up and ran off to play instead of searching for their baskets. Kirk and I enjoyed some quiet time together looking through the Super Sontag paper and having a nice breakfast. Since it was raining pretty hard, the Easter bunny decided to hide all the Easter eggs in the living room. Eventually Tiara came down the stairs with her sisters close behind her asking if the Easter bunny had been here yet. We opened the living room door and the kids ran in as though escaping from a cage. Their eyes got big. "The Easter bunny came!" was the universal cry. And Kirk and I laughed and watched as they all plopped down in a circle on the living room floor with their baskets. The each went through each one excitedly emptying them onto the floor piece by piece. Elise was the only one who kept everything in her basket. Instead, she kept standing up and trying to carry it, staggering around repeating, "Heavy, it's heavy." About 15 minutes later, the older three were still looking through their baskets, opening things up and testing out their new treasures, but Elise had seen, from across the room, a brightly colored "Easter Egg!" She ran over to it, picked it up, shook it excitedly while grinning ear to ear and ran back to show me. Her sisters all took notice and also jumped up realizing that where there is one Easter egg, there probably are more. Within seconds they realized that the Easter bunny had brought their annual hunt inside and they were all looking around, laughing over the eggs they'd found, and breaking them open to see their contents. At the end of it all we had about 80 Easter egg halves strewn from one end of the living room to the other.



The afternoon was quiet. They were all on a chocolate high and seemed very happy playing with each other. I cooked a simple dinner... no "real" ham this year as I forgot to get one at the commissary and neither the Natex nor the local markets have real American-style ham. It's crazy too, because almost everything here is made from schinken (pig meat), but I can get about 50 varieties of ham sausage/deli meat/pate... but absolutely no big ham. We settled with my usual rosemary blue-cheese scalloped potatoes and a nice sauté of white asparagus and little tiny ham strips that I found at the Natex. I'll cook the real deal next weekend just so I can use the hock for soup. After dinner the kids wanted to eat the mini MnMs that the bunny brought. I asked them to wait and then it got very quiet. Kirk and I were talking. The kids, we thought, were playing nicely together. A few minutes later Aria came down telling me that she couldn't find her MnMs. None of them were in their baskets where I'd left them... up high. I looked at Luci. She blamed Elise. Elise couldn't reach them. Arianna explained that Luci got them down for Elise. Supposedly Elise ate all three packages of MnMs BY HERSELF! Hmmm.... highly suspicious. They are learning to cover for each other and blame the littlest. I found two empty containers later stashed behind Luci's bed. The third is still MIA. Needless to say, they didn't get any more chocolate that night!


All day yesterday we heard the train whistle coming and going every 45 minutes or so. The Gillrath steam train was running. Each time, the kids would stop what they were doing and run to the window to see it as it crossed a road very near our house. Today it ran again, so during a sunny patch, we went down to the Selfkantbahn to get on the train. Last time we'd gone was for the Nikolaus train when St. Nick actually gets on the train and hands out treats to the children. This one was just a train ride. It was beautiful though and it felt great to be out. In the grocery stores, markets, and bakeries all times of year, you can buy brightly dyed hard-boiled eggs. Today as we stepped off the train, the girls all got excited to see that there were real colored eggs nestled in among the flower beds by the train track. Other children were picking them up, so we let them each pick one. We followed the crowd to a near building where they had old train memorabilia and model train parts for sale, then we got ice cream at a nearby shop and enjoyed walking around outside until it was time to go. On the way back we stood outside at the very back of the train and watched as the train went through little villages and the neighboring farm fields. We saw a lot of people walking together. We saw windmills and old buildings. We saw a lot of pheasant. And, as if this train was something extraordinary, we saw people turning out all along the track taking photos. Every time the train stopped even for a moment, people would jump off and take pictures. It is an old train and it has character, but I think that small town pride has taken a particularly strong hold of this one and it is very sweet. (http://www.selfkantbahn.de/ -- look for the small British flag at the bottom right hand corner for the English translation)

Tomorrow is back to some sort of reality. Kirk goes back to work and I start week 2 of spring break - a second chance at a little fun if the rain finally lets up a little. The kids all had a week off for Carnival in February and now two weeks off for spring break - it all seems a bit excessive... but then, Europeans take their vacation time VERY seriously and the Americans try to follow suite. We'll do a bit better once Kirk is done with training... some days I feel like I just moved here. We're settled... but still, not quite.

Phew! It's all over... until Sunday. Two Easter Egg hunts down and only one more to go. I spent much of Friday and Saturday baking and cleaning and decorating to make this place look Eastery and festive. I baked a bunt cake, took a fork around the frosting and then up the sides to make it look like basket weave, then filled the middle with green coconut and those speckled chocolate eggs, then stuck in a woven pipe cleaner handle to make a adorable Easter Basket cake. It got rave reviews. So, Easter basket cake, about 40 bunny cupcakes, chocolate bird nests, and a ton of other stuff made our house full of preschoolers on a sugar high. I think we've almost recovered. Sunday we had a nice turnout. We'd invited 40 kids and thankfully only 16 showed up. We hid 250 plastic eggs in our yard and gave the kids a limit so it would be fair. They had a great time! The pinata and games went over well too. The only glitch is that it started to get cold and windy, so Kirk ended up moving all the stuff I had set up nicely outside into the house and the entire gaggle of sugar high kids and parents moved indoors for painting, crafts, more games, and food. Arianna, Luci, and Elise had a great time. Elise has learned already that her basket is quite an asset. She wants it every day now just in case she might find a chocolate filled egg hiding somewhere. The parents seemed to have a good time. One of my Spanish friends came with her kids. They'd never seen the plastic eggs before - neither had our Brussels friends who came. They'd all thought at first that I was going to hide real hard-boiled eggs. Yuck. I told them that our kids, at least, would never eat that many hard-boiled eggs! Anyway... after the two hours plus, the kids with their parents headed home. Our friends from Brussels stayed for dinner which was wonderful - they are such great people. We're planning a trip to the Belgian coast with them in June.

Tiara brought home a letter from the principal today congratulating her on another quarter with straight A's and an invitation to the straight A breakfast that they'll have after spring break! This is the second consecutive quarter with straight A's since her 2.5 years of home schooling and Kirk and I are so very proud of her accomplishments. Tiara is excited too. She showed me the letter right away while jumping up and down and smiling ear to ear. She turned in her application today to be in the science fair which will be her first one ever. She wants to explore optical illusions, but hasn't come up with a hypothesis yet. She's getting quite a reputation at school now. Several parents and teachers have complimented me on my polite, sweet girl, and one parent who works at the school hassled her about not being in the spelling bee. Now, Tiara and I both know that spelling is NOT her talent, but the others don't have to know that and she feels great to have the acknowledgement from others that she is doing well. Aside from school, ballet is going well, she had a sleepover this last weekend, and tonight she was on the phone for over an hour with several different friends.

Arianna and Luci went to a swim party last weekend and have another one tomorrow. They LOVE swimming and want to go everyday. I will probably enroll them in lessons this summer after soccer ends. Wednesday was their first soccer practice. Their coach is Canadian and the team is mixed with American, Canadian, and Dutch children. The ages also range from 3 (Luci) to 7. Last year they tried to put all the young ones together on the same team and apparently the coach couldn't handle it, so the teams are mixed and so far it seems to work. Arianna and Luci aren't at all intimidated by the older kids and seem to fit in well. They both enjoyed the practice and listened well to "coach." Arianna kicks the ball great. Luci has wonderful aim and kicks well, but will always stop about 3 feet from the goal, pick up the ball, then run into the goal. They'll have to work on that. Still, they are very cute and had a good time. Yesterday they both brought home notes from school... a case of head lice was found in each of their class rooms. My head itches just thinking about it. I never had to deal with this with Tiara. Lucky me. It grosses me out and I do hope that we'll miss this batch. So far they are "nit free," but with an incubation time of 2 weeks, I have a bit longer to check scalps and fret. Since we all use the same 2 brushes, I can be sure that if one of the girls gets it, then all 5 of us girls will get it. Oh, the joys of motherhood.

Elise. What can I say? She's absolutely adorable in every way! I think, knowing that she's my last one, that I'm savoring each moment with her a little more. And her personality makes that easy. But, instinct is telling her that she is almost two. I know that she has no concept of age or time, but her internal clock has struck 2 and just a month away from her birthday she has begun to answer each question with a resounding "NO!" and reacts instantly to any "no" from me by hurling herself onto the floor all curled up face down in the fetal position in a full-fledged pout. It's lovely. So glad it's my last one to put me through this phase. And it's just beginning. Oh well. She's still irrestistably cute. I think I'll keep her around a little while longer. Her favorite sentences: "Where's a bink?" "Where's a bunny?" "I don't know." "I like it." "I don't like it." "Dat's Aria's?"

Well... tomorrow is another swim party and Tiara's pre-pointe class and major baking on my part. I need to run and blow dry my pinata... our big Easter Egg hunt is Sunday and there is still a lot of work to do!

Tchuss!

p.s. The photo on the left was taken on Wednesday the 5th after school. Arianna and Luci had their Easter parties at school and came home with cute little paper baskets that they made stuffed with candy. Luci's face was painted to look like a bunny. Aria opted out on that one - the paint tickles her face and she doesn't like it.