Practicing Hiding Eggs

Right.

So yesterday -- at Zoe's command -- we started the ceremonial "practice run" of hiding cheap plastic eggs and making the kids find them.

This is ridiculously fun, because I follow the kids and take the eggs back out of their baskets, pass them behind my back to Chuck to re-hide.

The kids think we have a gazillion eggs and after about an hour, they get tired.

Serves them right.

Because finding eggs before Easter is like putting candles on lasagne and singing Happy Birthday.

It just isn't done.

Not even by Cubans.
At least not this one.

Turning On the Gorilla

Valentines Day evening, 2006.

Long-suffering husband says "did you leave this note?"

Huh? I take a minute to respond, because if it's GOOD, I'm taking credit. I come from a family like that (Hi Dad!!).

It's a note written in crayon, taped to one of the columns between our kitchen and living room.

I have been BANNED from using tape on the walls by the "treat our new home with respect" Nazi, so I shake my head ADAMANTLY.

OH. It's a note from his step-mother, my mother-in-law directing us to look in the fridge, apologizing for missing us.

I don't read it to Chuck - I just head to the fridge.

THREE BOXES OF CHOCOLATE *and* a $50 bill.

Clearly  the $50 bill is a traditional aphrodesiac, yes?

So I liberate the cash from fridge, put it in my bra, and shove the chocolate behind the milk and OJ.

 ZOE SHRIEKS.

There is a life-sized stuffed animal in her room.

A life sized SHEEP DOG in her room, on top of a laundry-basket.
Guess what's in the laundry basket?


Enough chocolate to fuel a class of 5-year olds pushing a minivan up Mt. Everest.

I try NOT to curse.

I want to be happy for her. But my kids on chocolate are... miserably wound-up. Loud, aggressive, tearful. High, low, everything in between.

Chocolate brings out the latent teenager in them.

I get husband's attention, and direct him to grab a few bags and he shovels chocolate into them by the HANDFUL while I distract the kids who are now trying to pull each other around on the above-mentioned sheep dog.

Then Zack goes to HIS room.

You guessed it.

A life-sized GORILLA, sitting on a laundry basket full of chocolate.

He doesn't notice any of it, except for the fact that the GORILLA is holding a sheet of Dora the Explorer stickers.

I'm trying to figure out how to distract my son while rooting around for the 10 pounds of chocolate nestled under the gorilla.

Then Zack sees the gorilla, pokes it a few times, and says "Mommy, turn it on."

I wink at it.

Flip my hair.

Lean over to tell it a joke.

NOTHING.

So I slipped it the $50, wished it a Happy Valentine's day, and watched American Idol.