I just couldn’t force the girls to do math on a day like today, so we went out.   Squish chewed moldy acorns, Sunshine searched for beautiful rocks, and Princess laid out her “territory that no one can cross into”, including the marshy pond next door.

While perusing her kingdom, Princess discovered a second speckled egg (like the one we found last week) lying in the rocks.  Knowing it would have a better chance at hatching if it stayed in the nest instead of the lizard cage, she decided to put the egg back.  On the way, she nearly trampled a whole nest of them!

This discovery meant we had to do the research I didn’t get to on the day of the treasure hunt.  Eggs really look the same to my untrained eyes, aside from robin eggs, chicken eggs and bunny eggs.  But I’ve seen red-winged blackbirds on the cattails and marsh birds running through the grasses, so I took a guess, and after a bit of double-checking, I think that the eggs we found belong to the Spotted Sandpiper.

What I can’t figure (as a mother of my own brood) is why they’d leave their eggs in plain sight.  Okay, they have pretty good camouflage with those speckles, but still.  If I were a snake, I’d slither along and swallow them up, snap gulp!  I don’t know, maybe it’s too cool for snakes, but it’s a perfect day for sneakered feet.  I guess sandpipers haven’t evolved to distinguish shoe stench as predatory, yet.  Noses up, little buddies!

In honor of leprechauns and sunshine, we had a treasure hunt.

Obviously, they sang Jingle Bells to get their clue.

We crossed swampland and clover, and peered under rocks.

“Make a wish.  You may find an acorn and a clue inside.”  We trekked from the fairy wishing well…

… to the peppermint infested frog pond. “Ribbit, ribbit. Hint: mint.”

At the end of the hunt, we were all surprised by our (not-so-lucky) find:

And then my son had the luck to find another treasure in the rocks nearby:

Not sure if it will hatch–if it’s chilly and there’s an egg, does it need chill to hatch?  Or incubation?  If we stick it in the toasty lizard cage, will it help it or roast it?  Unfortunately, my son won’t allow us to make an omelet.  Oh, well.

Spring brings all sorts of amazing things.

Life at home may not be as thrillingly dangerous as Cameron Morgan experiences it in Ally Carter’s fantastic fourth Gallagher Girls book, Only the Good Spy Young, which I just put down (with an overwhelming satisfaction that (nearly) drowned my pang of writerly envy).  And it seriously isn’t as deadly as having an earthquake rip through one’s life like it did in Japan (all of my prayers are with you).  But…

…we have our own dangers we’ve maneuvered through.  Not just the usual diabetes care, death by temper tantrum, or heart attack from a flat tire discovered just after the husband left on travel (I LOVE having an air compressor!).  I’m educating you so you don’t encounter these two subtle babies in your own home.  Trap number one:

The Death Bed

Last night, my husband went to give the birds a midnight nuzzle, usually taboo, since who wouldn’t be cranky with you if you got pulled from your warm bed for a chilly whiskering?  Good thing he did, because Phoenix and Ember had chewed their bed so thoroughly that Phoenix was stuck in the threads.  Both wings were tangled enough we had to snip him out, while our fingers were attacked by a panicky beak.  Come morning, we might have had a strangled bird.  This danger is easy to avoid: DON’T CHEW YOUR BED TO BITS.

Trap number two:

The Fudge Foil

This danger isn’t for the exact health risks you might point out.  To be properly forthcoming, I fudged on the recipe, so I take the pride-kicking responsibility for this, especially as I was the one who took to heart too many recipe reviews.  The recipe itself instructed me to line the 8 x 8 dish with foil, and then pour the bubbling mixture into it and chill it in the refrigerator, which I did.

My first fudge was that I substituted baking cocoa for chocolate chips.  A few reviewers hinted the butter was a bit much as it was, so I hoped that the “extra” butter would compensate for the missing fat from the chocolate chips.  I didn’t add extra sugar, either.  Since when is (generously snitched from) marshmallow creme not sweet enough to kill you?  I like my chocolate rich and dark.  All this might still have worked out if I hadn’t boiled the mixture an extra minute to keep it from staying too soft (as the reviews said might happen).  And I forgot to add the vanilla at the end.

Combine these and get… not fudge, but an unfortunate, sticky glob of tootsie roll.  Deadly tootsie roll, or at least dangerous, because of all the tiny foil bits that got stuck and mashed throughout it during our attempts to separate the two.

Left glob: edible?  Right glob: indigestible.  Even now, as I melt the remainder of the compulsively salvaged dessert across my tongue, I’m spitting out fragments of foil.  This dangerous trap is also easy to avoid: DON’T MAKE FUDGE MY WAY.  (Or if you do, throw it out.)

Well, now you know a few more ways not to die young.

(But I WILL make good fudge someday.  I will if it kills me.)

I woke up from a nap to find this ethereal beauty…

…arrived fresh on my nightstand from my brother!  I took it from the box, felt the soft, broken-in material with pockets EVERYWHERE, and knew without a doubt it was my partner for life.  Touching the surface, I seriously felt the way my daughter does about her Blanket, which once upon a time was sewn with loving cross-stitch by my brother’s amazing wife, and now looks like this:

and this:

You see the level of commitment.  So much for Coach, try REI and a brother and sister-in-law who rock.  I LOVE my new bag!!!!