Spring!

At long last, spring has arrived! The past few days -- since Saturday -- have been over 60 and sunny. Hooray!

Unfortunately, Saturday also brought one of the nastiest viruses we've seen in these parts. Lizzie had her first real big-girl barf, which capped an afternoon of the runs. Poor thing was alarmed by vomiting, but otherwise seemed to survive relatively unscathed. She got 2 baths that night, which she at least seemed to enjoy. By Sunday she was right as rain. We, however, were not. Sparing the details, let's just say that mommy and daddy bore the brunt of this storm, and I have yet to graduate from crackers and ginger ale almost 3 days later. Ugh.

Fortunately, we managed to get to the (garden) nursery on Saturday, and managed our first planting before the GI monsters took hold. We now have lettuce, spinach, brussell sprouts, and broccoli seedlings in the ground. We put in the peas this afternoon.

Lizzie is having a BLAST outside (figuratively, thank goodness). Early in the weekend, we realized that our neighbor's Christmas-leftover danged-ugly PVC penguin, roughly 2' tall, was a baby magnet. We couldn't keep her in our yard. Bringing her back, even after a nice viit to pet the penguin, resulted in an incredible tantrum each time. So we did what any reasonable parent would do... we asked to borrow the penguin, which now sits in our garden, affording a whole new elegance and class to our yard. *sigh*

We also decided to try for diversion in the form of a sand and water table, which Lizzie and I found at Target on Sunday morning (shortly before I was felled by GI Groan). Again, a big hit, though also a learning experience. Foolishly, I'd thought "both sand and water? how great!" not realizing that in practice it would be sand with water... i.e. mud. Well, not quite, but certainly messier than I'd bargained on. Or at least so I thought until today when we watered in the peas. Then there was REAL mud. The sand table ceased to exist, and twinkle toes proceeded to wallow like a little blond pig. Only up to her elbows, fortunately, but still... I took her to the park without hosing her off first and realized there among the classy decked Lexus moms with their fancy designed bedecked kids that I had none other than Pigsty (or whatever that kid's name is), grabbing at my (also filthy) trousers. The dirt all around Lizzie's mouth (from trying to lick (okay, licking) the trowel, if you must know) really iced the cake. Awesome.

The downside to all of this outside time is that Lizzie tuckers quickly. Tonight she was signing "sleep" at 5pm. She was down for the count at precisely 5:58, despite my efforts to prolong bedtime. She's been getting up earlier too, so perhaps she knows daylight savings is around the corner. Smart little girl, I wouldn't put it past her.

That's all the news for now. Lots going on, lots of great days, and one happy little kid. Too bad for the stomach bug, but Lizzie ducked the worst of it, so that's really what matters most. Her cold is finally, almost gone (mine too!), so we're ready to move into a sunny, healthy springtime!