Happy Easter!

After the pre-Easter festivities that we attended on Good Friday, today was Easter proper. We again headed just a little ways out of town for another gathering of my inlaws: Babe-O's great-grandmother, grandparents, great aunt/uncle, and second cousins. I think they're her second cousins, I can never keep that cousin stuff straight. Unless you are dating dangerously close to your own family, it doesn't come up that much.

We got up a little after seven, hit the grocery store for green bean casserole ingredients, and had Babe-O's closed-door Easter with just us. We broke out the video camera and put her into an adorable little Easter dress so that we could capture the moment as she followed the little confetti eggs to her basket…okay, so I could hold her hands and tug her along until she arrived at her basket; same thing.

Actually it was two baskets, one from us and one from my parents back East (I always wanted to say "back East").

Ours was full of a cool selection of baby books, which I actually had not seen until today. The one from my parents was more elaborate, with a bunch of cool stuff for the baby and tasty stuff for us. Poor little sucker can't have candy yet – ha!

My parents' basket arrived last week, unassembled, with detailed and hilarious instructions on how to put it together. If I remember correctly, one of the instructions was "Place personally-selected Easter crap into basket." I laughed.

Anyway, the thing was very cute and very thoughtful and it was very cool that they went to the trouble to put it together. Very!

After that, we hit the road for the big gathering. Babe-O slept on the way there and after taking a while to warm up, seemed to have a good time. Her four cousins are all girls and run in age from something like 5 to something like 12. So they were very energetic and Babe-O eventually took an interest with them and played well, doing peek-a-boo and banging toys around. It was good to see her playing with other kids, even if they were pretty well separated from her in age.

Dinner was awesome, of course, and Babe-0 displayed outstanding manners by sitting in her booster seat and quietly gnawing on a teething biscuit for most of dinner. Sometimes we take for granted what a good kid she is, but stuff like this always reminds us.

Following a quick and pretty chilly trip to the park, we headed home, just in time for a pretty miserable bath that our slightly-overtired baby screamed most of the way through. She was good all day and earned some bathtime screaming.

Now she's upstairs with her Mom, nursing her way to sleep. Not a bad long weekend, but my sorry butt is thoroughly kicked.

Happy (Good) Friday

Today, I had off of work (kind of unexpectedly…Good Friday, really?) and our little family had a chance to go catch up with the extended family (Mom-O's side).

We headed just slightly out of town and started out with a trip to see Aunt/Uncle/Cousins. Babe-O was in her new Easter Dress that we picked up last night – she looked adorable, of course.

When we first arrived, she was very reserved and for about a half an hour quietly sat and gave sideways glances at everybody there. This seems to be her visiting routine. After she took it all in and started feeling comfortable with her surroundings, she finally warmed up and let everybody see a little bit of her personality. She played with some early Easter gifts, harassed the cats, and had a generally good time. Her Great Aunt and Uncle had gotten her some plastic keys for teething, which she promptly started sucking on and some cool touch-n-feel books, which she immediately dove into, feeling out the textures and turning the pages. Good gifts.

After that, it was across the street to her Great Grandparent's house, where the girls chatted in the kitchen while I sat in the living room with Mom-O's Grandfather, discussing how much damn better the world used to be and what a bunch of sissy nitwits my generation is. It was a good time.

Babe-O was particularly impressed with the two pets of the household, a borderline asthmatic Chihuahua shaped like a football and a 45-pound cat who by closing its eyes can make it nearly impossible to tell his head from his ass. More presents here, including a little stuffed bunny picked out by her notoriously cranky Great-Grandfather, proof again that he's got a soft spot or two. She loved the bunny, which clucks like a chicken (a la the Cadbury Bunny).

We finished there and decided to press our luck and extend our stay by stopping by in-law's house, where we knew we would end up staying well past Babe-O's bedtime. Her good mood didn't let up, and after a quick nap she spent the evening babbling, playing, and generally having a good time. I also babbled played, and had a good time. We ended up getting home around 10:30 p.m., which is hours after bath and bedtime. Babe-O slept in the car on the way home, as we knew she would, and is now happily sleeping in her Mom's lap, hopefully ready to be transferred seamlessly to her crib for a long, uninterrupted night's sleep. This is actually a possibility, as despite being sick, she has been sleeping through the night lately and just might cut us some slack and do the same tonight.

Tomorrow will be a day just for the three of us and on Sunday we've got more Easter festivities to attend. These holidays are busy, but as Babe-O grows (even at just seven months) she is getting more and more fun and more involved in everything that's going on. What a cool kid.