A rabbit named Mouse

Leif woke us up at 6:30am on Easter morning. I went in and sat with him while AB dragged himself out of bed (without saying one grumbly word). Leif was surprised to find an Easter basket full of goodies sitting on the coffee table instead of a movie cued up and ready to play. The morning then progressed from there as we went through all the Easter basket goodies and he became attached to the new stuffed, very soft rabbit sitting next to his basket. He promptly exclaimed, "Mouse!" and hugged it close. Mouse has joined the ranks with Puppy and Lion on favorite stuffed animals. Neither has taken over the front running position that is currently held by blankey.

I pulled the coffeecakes out of the fridge and allowed them to come to room temperature. I had zero hopes for them since the texture was far more reminiscent or old crusted over peanut butter. Regardless, I tossed them in the oven, more with the intention of it being a science experiment and so I could have one more thing to complain about with them and be able to whine about the awful lying recipe.

To my surprise they raised up a little bit and baked up reasonably edible! AB did make the comment that, "you know I always think of coffeecake as being sweet". Then he wisely stopped there. Yeah, so they weren't great. They were dense, not light and fluffy like yeast breads should be, and being sweetened only with honey... doesn't really cut it even for NM who is on a quest to eat healthier. If you are going to have sweet breads... have sweet breads. (And I am not talking about "sweetbreads". Ick.)

Leif, after realizing that the plastic eggs contained jelly beans, called off the egg hunt. He did what every child should do Easter morning and ate jelly beans, ate the ears off his (hollow) chocolate bunny, and drank juice. So when I put a piece of coffeecake in front of him he looked at me like I was nuts. Eat again?

It was amazingly early and so AB and I hurried up and got ready and headed to church. I had neurosed about leaving Leif in a daycare he had never attended for the service. We walked by the 24 month thru 3 year room and I nearly stopped and put him in that room. He was as big as most kids there and the toys looked fun. But no, I wandered him down to the Infant to 23 months old room. Mistake #1.

I was pleasantly surprised and happy with the cleanliness of the room and the very friendly attitude of the head teacher in that room. The kids and the toys seemed awfully young, but I figured that was Ok, it was only for an hour. I felt OK about leaving Leif with her. She told us that if there was a problem she would page us silently. (Ok, I thought, whatever that means. Mistake #2, find out what a silent page is.)

Mistake #3 was AB's. Walking over and looking into the nursery. Leif saw him and started bawling. We walked over and chatted with some people we knew and then went into the church hall. We were sitting there for about 5 minutes when AB grabs the nursery claim tag. Looks at the number and gets up and leaves. I look around, knowing his number is #132 and see that 132 is highlighted on a little LED board. I panicked! How long has it been lit up? What is wrong?

AB comes back holding Leif and I just KNOW we will be making an exit within 30 minutes. There is NO way he will sit through this. Not only did Leif sit through it, but given the fact that I was incredibly unprepared (Mistake #4, no nax, no toys, no crayons... nothing), he did SO well. He did well enough that AB and I actually talked about resuming our search for a church (maybe this one?) knowing that Leif is perfectly capable of sitting through an hour long service. In the back of my mind thoughts of actually eating OUT at a restaurant were flittering by.

We returned home, praised Leif for his being well behaved. We played outside and then Leif hit the sack for a brief 2 hour nap. (I really like his 3 hour naps.)

AB started smoking the prime rib, I mixed up the chocolate bread pudding and got the side dishes prepped. Everything was most fabulous. We played outside after dinner, ate our dessert outside, drank yummy wine all evening. It was a great Easter!

This morning Leif was up well before 6am. This is due mostly to the fact that I posted here that starting today I would be up at 6am and go take my run with the dog then. I cursed Leif's sleeping "habits". The streak of 6:30am wakings has been broken. We snuggled and watched Nemo. Later in the morning Leif surprised me with a return to showing interest in the potty chair, after a good 2 weeks of noninterest. He carried it out to the kitchen and pulled on his clothes. I undressed him and he sat down and went! I hipped and hoorayed, hollared and yayed for his success. Then I let him run around nakey the rest of the morning as a reward, which he thought was oh so much fun.