Eric's first Easter, and first word (kinda sorta)

Eric playing with his two Easter baskets

Well, Easter weekend brought cold, rainy weather, so we weren't able to do that many fun things with Eric to celebrate the holiday.  Eric's godmother, Maite, brought him a cute, little American-style Easter basket that she made up for him with chocolate bunnies and eggs. 

Eric's mona

Mauri's mother brought him a more locally typical Easter basket consisting of a mona, a sweet bread with a small egg baked in.  Here it is typical for people to go outdoors somewhere and eat the mona together during Easter weekend.  Unfortunately the weather this year didn't permit it. Of course Eric can't eat any of his goodies yet, anyways, but I at least let him play with his baskets, indirectly getting a taste of both cultures.  

Good Friday was Mauri’s first day home from work.  We woke up that morning, both of us hearing the exact same thing.  Eric said “mama.”  He wasn’t saying it to me, or to Mauri, but he did say it.  I thought it, but Mauri said what I was thinking.  ‘He just said “mama!”  So, he has no recognition of what he said yet, but he did say it.  He hasn’t repeated it since then, though, and has gone back to his usual “words” like “aboo.” 

When Monday rolled around, I was ready to get out of the house.  With several days of rainy, cold weather and everything closed, I wanted to go somewhere.  Here, though, Monday was also a holiday.  Don’t misunderstand me.  I enjoy having Mauri at home, so I am not complaining about any holidays.  I just find it interesting that they like holidays so much here that there is a “second day of Easter” and a “second day of Christmas,” and both are celebrated so most places are closed.  The nearby mall, though, happened to be open, so I convinced Mauri to take us there.  I went with the idea of looking for a few things for Eric.

So, we headed into the toy store.  First of all, I wanted to find something to put on the floor, to sit Eric on and keep him from getting hurt if he should happen to fall.  Up until then, I'd been using a yoga mat, but it was much too narrow, so I had to use blankets on the sides in case he should fall sideways. I had seen foam mats for that before, and was excited to find some inexpensive Spongebob Squarepants foam squares that could be pieced together into a larger square for the floor.

I was looking for something else, too.  I know it’s early for Eric to be walking, but I wanted to look for something like a walker, or a cart which Eric could push around, or something that would help him get around as soon as he’s ready.  I didn’t expect to find anything very interesting, but I wanted to see what was available anyways. 

I was surprised to find something that was very multipurpose, and that Eric could use already.  It’s a 5-in-one car for babies from 6 months up.  It has lots of interchangeable accessories making it very versatile. In the picture you can see that it can be used as a rocker in one place for 6 month-old babies, as a car, a push car, etc. for older babies.  It was exactly what I was looking for.

So, we left the toy store with both things.  I was excited, and Mauri was grumbling something about having more “trastos” around the house. Oh well.  :)

Since then, the weather has greatly improved, and I decided to try bringing Eric’s bath outside again to let him play.  I had tried it once, when there had been another warm day, and Eric seemed to really enjoy it.  I brought out his bathtub, and he immediately started to play in the water. 

He loves splashing around, and seems to really love his bath fish toys.  When we bring him out of the tub, he cries if we don’t let him immediately hang onto one of the toys.  We’ve even started to give him his favorite starfish in his crib to see if it works like a pacifier, since Eric has never taken to using a pacifier, but he does like to chew on the starfish’s legs. I’ll have to get a picture of that soon. 

Action shot!

I’ll also make sure to charge the battery of my other camera so that I can get some video of one of his baths outside.  Eric loves to splash around and laugh while playing in the bath.  Yesterday I wanted to get some video, but realized that the battery was dead.  So, I did take some video with my phone, but the format doesn’t seem to be recognized by my computer programs.  So, I’ll work on fixing the problem, and will try to get some video up soon. 

I hope you all had a happy Easter.  Luckily we have another long weekend since Monday is another holiday, San Vicente (which always falls on the "second Monday of Easter," incidentally).  So, I‘m sure I’ll have more to tell you soon.  Until then, have a great week!.