Sorry for the Confusion!

So everyone thought my mom had passed away on that last blog post...  guess I should check my writing a little more closely!  Not to worry, she's alive and well.... back in California! 
Meanwhile I've survived my first few days without her here to help us.  Today is my last official day of maternity leave, and to celebrate it I've been working on a slide presentation for a talk I'm going to give at the National Health Care for the Homeless Conference next month.  I'm pretty excited to be able to give this talk, I'll be highlighting our respite HIV team and how it benefits our homeless patients.  So... no slowly getting back into the work life for me!  Just taking the plunge right back in! 

In other news, we finally took a picture of Luca in one of Daddy's t-shirts... to take one every year on his birthday.  He's definitely a little chunkier than he would have been if we were able to take it at his birth weight of 4 pounds!

Mom's Headed Back to California....

This morning we had to say goodbye to my mom, who has been with us since November 11th.  She's headed back to her home in California, and we are truly sad to see her go!  She was an irreplaceable amount of help and good company to us while I was on bed rest, and while we had to go back and forth to the hospital for several weeks before Luca came home.  I really don't know what we would have done without her!!
Vince was already moping this morning, "Where's Grandma?!, why isn't she here in the kitchen like every morning!?".  I made sure to wake him up to say goodbye to her this morning, but I guess it's going to take a while before we get used to her absence.  Zoë has recently started yelling "Mama... where are you?!" when she's walking around the house sometimes (except the 'where are you' is turned into one long word of 'whehaaahyhhuu!').  She'll interchange mama with Dada... Vincent.... whoever she is looking for at the moment.  Well this morning it was "g'ama..... whehaaaahyhhuu!?".... for a little while.  Heart breaking!  We are all just hoping that she comes back to visit soon!!  I secretly hope that she misses the kids so much that she jumps back on the plane ASAP and comes back for a visit! 

Now I cannot say it was all roses and good times while she was here, we definitely got on each others' nerves here and there... but for as much time as she was here, I'd have to say it went pretty darn smoothly.  Here's a few photos I never got around to putting up:

My mom prepared some Swiss Fondue for us and we had a fun night of lots of cheese!  It was time the kids got introduced to their Swiss Heritage ;)

My mom was a trooper, considering we dragged her to almost every birthday party and Doctor's appointment we had!  Here's one picture I've been wanting to get for a long time: Vince with the Midwife that helped deliver him!  My mom wound up in that pic too....

She got a good handle on how to deal with Luca too

She got in lots of snuggling time...

And of course, we wait until the last day to get a photo of Grandma with all her grandchildren!  I'm soo bad it's ridiculous

ok, this time don't forget Luca please!!

 

We are sad to see you go mom!!  We'll try to get along without you!  I threatened that Vince would be lucky if he even got cold cereal in the mornings now, let alone the huge plate of bacon and eggs he used to get from Grandma every morning.  But this morning, after my mom left, I stayed up and made him his own big plate of bacon and eggs.... and somehow I managed to get Zoë dressed and fed, made Luca his bottle, dressed and fed him... and was able to get dressed and eat something myself.  Yes....maybe, just maybe... I will survive without my mom here.... but it won't be easy.

Easter

We thought Vince would wake us up early on Easter morning, so we could all go looking for his Easter Basket!  Well, 7am rolled around and we were still happily sleeping in bed.... NO VINCE waking us up!!  I started to get a bit worried because he never sleeps that late (I know, depressing isn't it), and when we heard bumping around the house I knew something was up.  I went downstairs to check out the scene, and I will always laugh when I think of what I came upon.  Vince was in the living room and comes over to greet me.... stating in his exact words: "Mom! I have exciting news! The Easter Bunny came and left me a basket!".  It was sort of dark in the living room still, so it took me a few minutes to realize that Vince had a huge chocolate ring around his entire mouth.... making him look bearded with a mustache (lol!).  I said "oh really, did the Easter Bunny happen to leave you chocolate!?"..... 
He had already inventoried all his chocolate stash and toys, and little remnants of chocolate wrappers were scattered all over the floor.
It was a miracle he didn't find Zoë's Easter Basket and riffle through hers too!  When Zoë woke up he helped look for her basket, and it's wasn't long before she had the chocolate ring around her mouth too.  But the poor thing had a fever and was out of it the whole weekend. 

Here's some pics of the great easter egg dying event.  Zoë just kept throwing hers on the floor, I'll spare you the mess it caused

We picked the 'monster kit' this year (LOVE the hair and 3 eyed options!)

Vince and Luca cleaned up real well and both opted to wear ties for Easter.  No pics of Zoë cause she was so ill :( Thanks to my mom for staying home with her!

Vince had a great time with Ramona and Lucy as they ran around the backyard looking for Easter Eggs

 Time to eat till we get sick!