Easter in The Valley

I have been a crappy poster of late. Magdalena has been sick off and on for a few weeks with a stubborn ear infection, and I was trying to finish an article whose deadline had passed. I finished the article, but now my final final dissertation draft is due on Monday. So this weekend I will be burning the midnight oil while Agapito "enjoys" the company of all three girls solo. Oh, and did I mention we're in the middle of looking for a house? Gulp.  

We went to The Valley last weekend to attend Valerie and Alex's baby shower, and to celebrate Easter with the girls' cousins and grandparents. My favorite part is always the cascarones. They are brightly dyed hollowed-out eggs filled with confetti, to be cracked over unsuspecting nephew's and husband's heads. 

 

The picture below is the girls with their cousins, in the backyard of their grandma's childhood home. This is family related through Vanessa's side (as are all the folks in The Valley).

At this point, Rosie has no awareness that Lucero is "more related" to everyone in The Valley than she is. I wonder if she'll ever have an ah-ha moment, or if it will be something that she doesn't even think about. She's never asked if Grandma and Popo (Vanessa's folks) aren't her "real" grandparents, even though she knows about Vanessa and that they are Vanessa parents. And the girls have never questioned if Nana (my mom) or Grandpapa (my step-dad) are more related to Rosie than Lucero. It's hard to know how they see it, and I don't want to try fix something that isn't broke by probing too deeply. My daughters are just so darn well-adjusted. I'm not bragging. It's really quite puzzling. And I'm not saying it's even my doing. Okay, maybe a little my doing.  Maybe it's because I sit around worrying and analyzing everything enough for our whole family? As Agapito says, I think about everything "6 ways til Sunday."

Speaking of Agapito, here's a picture of him at the baby shower, having just successfully tied his shoe despite the intrusive "baby bump." This is the face he makes when he's accomplished something against all odds, usually with a little skullduggery. For instance, in this case he maneuvered an arm under the pillow, because you know how women are able to just reach through the belly to get to our shoe laces. What I love most is that he looks like he's doing a Greek or Russian folk dance.  

 If I were a rich man, zaddy zaddy zaddy zaddy zaddy zaaaah....