Oh! Easter happened, didn't it?

I suppose I should at least mention the festivities of yesterday, right?  Yes, I know that technically TODAY is zombie Jesus day, but Oliver isn't home today... so we did everything yesterday.

Oliver woke up bright and early, and found his basket of stuff on the coffee table.  In true Oliver form, he wasn't sure what to do with it.  It took quite a while to get him into all of it...and it was mostly toys, because I think that having excessive amounts of candy in the house is bad for both of us!  I've also decided that he's going to be getting tooth brushes for Easter every year...so that I'll feel a little better about the sugary stuff, I guess.  Also, he really likes them.

I put a few M&Ms in plastic eggs...and he shook them.  He was thrilled when he found out there was candy inside... he likes M&Ms.  I like M&Ms too, because I can really regulate how much he's getting.  Same goes for jelly beans.  He doesn't feel ripped off, and I don't feel like I'm feeding him too much crap.  I got him one big chocolate rabbit.  He hasn't eaten it yet.  I sort of figure I'll strip him down to his diaper and give it to him outside.  He won't finish it...but the mess will be spectacular!  There were 2 Reeces pieces carrot-shaped things...and he tried to eat through the bag, so I took them away.  He also got some peeps, and was very excited about them, but forgot that they were food....and that was it for edibles.

I also got him some ZhuZhu pets.  A racoon and a green hamster.  They're adorable!  Oliver runs from them and claims to be scared.  I'm not sure he's actually scared, because he's the one who turns them on, and he'll help them when they get stuck on the edge of the carpet or against a wall... but he's adorable when he runs away from them anyway.  He also got a couple Matchbox cars...and loved them.  He lost interest in everything else for a while because of them.  There were some bubbles (one bottle of the colored kind...cool looking, but a bit too messy) and a beach ball.  He loved the ball...we played catch for a very long time.

The thing I was most excited about was the Crayola marker set that makes metallic pictures.  It's some kind of special paper/marker combo that makes whatever you draw all shiny.  The advertising got to me... I admit it... I thought the little kid with the robot costume looked awesome.  Anyway, it's like $8 for 18 sheets of paper and 5 markers (Amazon says $15, ouch...don't buy it there!).  The markers are ambiguously colored, for the most part (the yellow and orange both look a lot like tan...until you draw with them).  The results ARE metallic...they look cool...BUT!  There is a huge problem with them - they smudge like crazy.  It's not just for a minute, either.  They still smudged about and HOUR after we finished coloring.  I just picked up one of the pictures, and was able to wipe the color right off... and it's been a full 24 hours.  Also, the paper doesn't lay flat.  after about 10 minutes of being out of the plastic wrapping, it curls up into a tube.  And to make matters worse, Oliver wasn't at all impressed.  He was into it for a full 5 minutes and then went right back to playing with his cars.  Needless to say, we probably won't be getting any more of these sets.

Anyway... I wanted to hide eggs all over the back yard for Oliver to hunt.  I had filled a bunch of little plastic eggs with jelly beans (well, put 4 or 5 in each) and was all ready to hide 'em... but nature had other ideas.  We have a tree that is particularly delicious to bees...and the whole thing was covered with bees.  I don't mean a few bees.  I mean the entire tree was covered with hundreds...maybe a thousand...bees.  So, the back yard was avoided for the whole day.  Oliver loves being outside, so that was awful.  I ended up hiding the eggs in the carport.  Grandma has enough crap out there that there were plenty of places to hide things.  He loved it :)

Then it was time to dye eggs.  I think this activity was a bit beyond the kid... he loves to sit on the counter and be my helper when I make bread or anything else.  He didn't seem to love to sit on the counter and be told to put down the cups of dye every couple seconds.  He chose the colors for the eggs, but didn't do any more.  He didn't even want to put stickers on them.  I wonder if he'll want to eat them...

Speaking of eating... I made a ham.  I've never made a ham before, so I decided to keep it simple and not do any glazing or anything else...just stick it in the oven and wait.  I got the thing not even knowing if I like ham.  It's literally been years since I've eaten one.  I tend to avoid pig products, and with the exception of a couple bites of a not-so-great zoo hotdog, I haven't eaten pork at all in years.  Anyway, as it turns out, I like ham.  And so does Oliver!  He's not a big meat eater...but he ate every bite of ham I gave him...cleaned his plate, actually!  I was shocked...but happy :)  It's always nice when he eats the food I put in front of him and seems to really like it :)

Now that I've written more than 2000 words today, I think I'll go do something else.  I have some fencing to put up in the yard, and some plants to move...and some rabbits to scare off, I'm sure.  Oh, and there's always the homework... blah.  Being a professional student is really a bummer sometimes.  It's better than being a professional something else, but still.  The more I learn, the less I know.  I want to take something practical, like carpentry or welding...welding would probably give me migraines.  But, carpentry would be very useful.  Maybe some mechanic classes would be good, too.  Some basic medical stuff would be great... like how to give stitches and treat chemical burns...how to set a broken bone or pop one back in if it's been dislocated.  I know how to write a research paper, but only have a vague understanding of how electricity works.  After my computer class and finding out more about how computers do what they do...how much stuff is going on at once...how much stuff has to happen for anything to happen at all... well, now I'm inclined to believe that computers are magic.  Also, my religion class is turning me into a more active atheist than ever before.  I want to start movements and revolutions and stuff... because I don't want my kid to have to pledge allegiance to anything...and because I don't want to send him off to school hoping for a solid education in rational scientific evaluation and have him come home to tell me that his teacher told them about god or creationism or something like that.

OK!  Really gonna go do something else now.  Really.  I am.  And it won't be Farmville.  I swear.