Last year we tried to get a little fancy with our easter eggs by trying pysanky (the Ukrainian art of decorating eggs). We didn’t have the right kind of wax so it didn’t work, but the dyes were so vibrant. This year we went simple and just bought the tablet kind of dye you can buy at the grocery store.

The girls and I dyed eggs while Mark and his sister visited a few nursing homes in the area. We are all staying at Mark’s uncle’s house. I’m not quite sure why, but the girls were really subdued and quiet during egg-dyeing.

The daunting task of taking care of a sick parent and trying to work with the system is overwhelming, confusing and wrought with anxiety. I know that all this is inevitable, but you never think that it might happen this soon. Relatively speaking, our parents are not old. They age before your eyes, but somehow they never seem old – that is, until they fall ill. Or maybe you catch a glimpse of a photograph that makes you stop and look more closely. And then it surprises you because yes, you can see the evidence of age that you usually don’t notice. Because most of the time, they are just mom and dad.

First of all, can I just complain about how sore I am? I am presently laying down on the couch with back pain, shoulder pain and sciatic nerve pain in my legs after 2 days of pushing that stroller through the snow and hauling some gift boxes and marshmallows to the Gifted Market this morning (yeah, I know, but believe it or not, marshmallows are heavier than you think). With my bad back, I’m not really supposed to pick up and carry anything over 10 lbs because it will trigger back and sciatic nerve pain, but sometimes that can’t be avoided.

So day 2 of the Gifted Market is complete. People, it’s not that I don’t love you, but I’m not really cut out for the vendor thing. Physically it’s hard on my back to be standing and sitting in 1 place for 9 hours and I wish I was more exuberant and bubbly, but I’m just too tired. There’s certainly an art to being a good sales person. I don’t think I have it, but sometimes you gotta pitch in for the team. Mark’s back on duty tomorrow and we’ll both be there on the last day. In the meantime, I’ll be putting on my mom hat all day tomorrow. Maybe we’ll even make more paper snowflakes.

…we didn’t need to. Old Navy sponsored an “urban” pumpkin patch and brought it to us. We didn’t end up going pumpkin picking this year due to various work things and inclement weather, so I was happy and curious to go to this event held in the cobblestoned streets of the Meat Packing District, right across the street from Pastis (and yes, I was jealous of every brunch goer there that morning). Held under huge tents because of the drizzle, the pumpkin patch was quirky and cheeky in an Old Navy way (lots of creepy store mannequins in the patch and a “petting zoo” of costumed mannequin dogs). With a $5 per family entrance fee with proceeds donated to the Food Bank of New York City, you could eat as much candy, chocolate, popcorn, cotton candy (the kids’ first taste of the stuff), apples, pears and drinks as you wanted (I totally fueled my craving for Reeses Peanut Butter Cups and shoved some in my bag for later too). And the pumpkins? Free. The girls painted theirs up in thick layers of paint which would have taken forever to dry so we left ours there and took 2 new ones to decorate back home. See those all red ones? Claudine had a Richard Dreyfuss moment and got into a red groove when she painted 2 all red, monochromatic pumpkins. All in all, a really fun event in a charming downtown location, waaay too much sugar, and all for a good cause.

So our pysanky (Ukrainian eggs decorating) didn’t really work out so well, mostly because the candle wax we used didn’t stick to the egg and kept coming off. If you do this, get the proper wax, not any old candle that’s laying around – in our case, a rose scented Yankee candle that we found at my mom’s house. Mark and his sister, Lara, who are part Russian, have childhood memories of these eggs around Easter. After the egg dyeing activities we went on an Easter egg hunt out in the yard, which compelled Mia to put on her bike helmet for the hunt. Maybe she had some premonition that she would get sick later that day. She’s totally convinced herself that her fever and illness is from eating too much easter candy and chocolate and vowed only to have 1 piece at any given time. She hasn’t been eating much food since Sunday and even refused apple pie last night. She’s taking this no sugar policy seriously and I think she’s scared herself from candy now! Claudine, on the other hand, has always loved chocolate (Mia’s not such a fan of chocolate strangely enough) and could have eaten piece after piece as she kept cramming chocolate eggs down until we had to decide that the sugar nazi needed to come back from vacation and take the chocolate away.

It was a quiet sunday. The rain subsided the night before and the house was flooded with light. We spent the morning dyeing eggs.

Claudine’s been going to class at Mia’s school since September and despite the fact that she’s been going once a week for 7 months, she’s still shy in the classroom setting. I’ve seen some small progress, but sometimes it’s a bit frustrating because I know how brilliant she is (haha, doesn’t every parent say that?), but in class she is like a little lump. She really loves the painting portion of class, however, and she becomes really focused and serious about her painting. It may take more time and I’ve seen her exhibit rare instances when she comes out of her shell, but it would be great if one day people could actually see the awesomeness that is Claudine.

And we dropped off these packages of cardamom marshmallows, rose hearts, and label samples to Martha Stewart Weddings today. Like most press inquiries, some things pan out and some things don’t, but it’d be really cool if our marshmallows did make it into the photoshoot. Most of our wedding favor clients have chosen to do their own labels, but I quickly made up some samples over the weekend for today’s delivery upon their request. They may end up becoming templates for labels that we can offer, in addition to the cookies and sweets that make nice wedding favors.

And it’s completely thrown me for a loop. I can’t remember being this sick in a long time and it’s been 3 straight bed-ridden days with no signs of getting better. I’m grateful that work is a little slow right now, but when you’re in a sick fog of fever, chills and lots of coughing, your mind tends to wander to the strangest of places. When I was a kid, I used to hallucinate whenever I had high fevers – bodies emerging from walls, arms stretched and coming towards me in bed. Pleasant, huh? I still remember those hallucinations clearly (and I swear it stemmed from watching The Wiz with Michael Jackson. Wasn’t there a scene like that in the beginning? Or did I just totally make that up?). Thankfully, I haven’t had hallucinations like that in a long time. With nothing to do but lie here and rest, however, I’ve been trolling the internet out of boredom and catching up on celebrity gossip (did you know that Milo and Hayden from Heroes broke up?), reading blogs (seems like everyone is pining for spring), and the news (quite frightening, actually).

One of the things that I’ve been pondering while laying in bed is making mobiles. I made this one with birds 3 years ago and I would like to make more. Perhaps it was our trip to the Whitney and sitting down with the kids for what seemed like quite a bit of time watching the Calder sculptures gently move. They were mesmerized and we sat there very quietly and watched, which these days is no small feat considering the recent bout of hyper energy that is Mia. But for now, I will file this away for another time when I am not one with the couch. Off to bed.

We had a great day yesterday. Seriously, it was the best birthday yet and I’m convinced more than ever that simple is just fine when it comes to birthdays. The birthday banner became cupcake toppers for the school party and I’m going to allow myself a little pat on the back with that one – I am really into the whole idea of cupcake toppers and it made the birthday spread that much more festive. As part of the celebration, the kids decorated chef hats and paper cups, and Mark brought the juicer and all kinds of fruits and vegetables for a live juicing demo where each kid got to pick their own juice combination. What’s cool about our juicer is that you can shove a whole apple and juice it so the effect was quite impressive to the kids. I think we got a little ambitious by bringing in spinach, ginger, kiwis and beets when most kids chose apple with a combination of strawberry, but it was all good.

Later that night, we went for sushi at Mia’s favorite neighborhood Japanese restaurant (she made sure to tell the waitresses that too). As a surprise at the end of the meal, they brought out this crazy candle flower thing that when lighted, shot sparkles in the air (was too late in the photo taking to catch the sparkles). It then unfolded like a flower with candles lighted on each petal and slowly rotated around. OMG. We had never seen anything like it and we were all standing back a bit afraid, not knowing what would happen when this thing got lighted. It was magnificent. And when the entire restaurant stopped and sang happy birthday, it made this newly turned 5 year old very very happy.

Miss Mia is 5! She’s sassy and funny and so many things that Mark and I are not. I still don’t get how we made a kid that is as outgoing and sometimes hyper as she is, but we wouldn’t have her any other way.

We had a very small and casual brunch over the weekend with Mia’s 2 best friends. We decided to keep it simple and small with brunch items and cake (lemon curd with lavender buttercream). There will be a little party for her at school today. Done. And she was very happy with all of it. As a little surprise I made this birthday banner for Mia late at night using some construction paper and decorative scraps. I’m thinking of turning the banner into cupcake toppers for school today. More birthday celebrations to come!