I think Spring may be here finally. The sun came out this afternoon. I mean, I know way back in February I gloated about Spring arriving, but it didn’t turn out that way. Winter in northern California means rain. This “spring” we’ve had rain. Lots of rain. Cold rain. Record rain. Rain for the past two weeks. Unbelievable amounts of rain in March.

This past Saturday we had a break in the rain for an hour and headed out on a mission. Rachel was going to hug the Easter Bunny and move on with her life. The week before we came across the Easter Bunny in the mall and while Hannah clamored to get her arms around the bunny, Rachel was frightened and chose not to. In the car on the way home, she felt sad about it and wanted to go back and try again. I’m not that indulgent, particularly in a downpour, so we went home instead. Then on the first night of Passover, when we were celebrating Seder with some friends, Rachel was too shy to represent the “Wild Beasts” when it came time to do so during the dinner (she got the “beasts” mask on her plate). This also made her sad. And so this Saturday, we got our raincoats on, went downtown and gave the bunny a hug. Rachel almost chickened out in the end, but I reminded her of how she felt when she didn’t hug the bunny last time, and then I stuck her hand In Hannah’s hand and they went together. Strength in numbers. We tried the same thing in church today. I stuck Rachel’s hand in Hannah’s when it was time to go up and participate in a children’s dance. She was frightened but went with Hannah.

I want them to learn to grab each other’s hands automatically like this through life.

Oy. I have this post that I want to write. It’s about sisters–my girls, It’s in my heart; it just hasn’t reached my head yet. I can’t quite capture it. It has to do with this holding of hands and the piercing squabbling that intermingles with the holding of hands and how it all adds up to something more powerful than I could have imagined when I kept repeating to Rachel in an annoying sing-songy voice when she met Hannah for the first time, “She loves you. I think she loves you. She’s going to be your friend.” I was videotaping Rachel at the time, and my voice is so loud, ridiculous and repetitive it’s comical.

Rachel was 2 ½ years old then and took it all in beautifully at first. As the videotape continues she touches Hannah so delicately, clearly in awe, and begins singing “twinkle-twinkle” to her just as she had planned to. It was an amazing moment.

There were other moments in the following months, moments of clarity for Rachel. Hannah didn’t love her, Rachel would tell me on sudden impulse. I always protested, and she usually accepted my perspective, but really, she was right. Hannah did not love her. Not yet. Heck, she didn’t really love me. A newborn is struggling to poop for goodness sakes. What use or time is there for love.

But now, the love is palpable. I don’t know how to write about it. The screeches that occur during their arguments drive me nuts. Truly. But the love is so….there. Where are the words? It’s in the gestures, the expressions. And I am too tired to paint those pictures for you now.

Speaking of sisters, my sister (Sister M) is arriving tomorrow with her husband and four kids….oh, and with one more child on the way (her, not me), as Rachel likes to remind me. My other sister (aka “Sis”) is across the country, hopefully sleeping through the night tonight, with 4 month-old baby Jeremy. You know what touches me about “Sis”. I bucked her as a child. I was the youngest and didn’t let her lead me as a big sister is trained and prodded to do. And yet, here she is, reading my blog every day and letting me give her advice about babies when I talk to her. She’s letting me take her hand. I am truly humbled.

We have a picture of Hannah in a car-seat in the hospital where I am looking at her before taking her home. Hannah loves this photo. She now thinks that she was born in a car-seat, while Rachel “came out of mommy’s tummy.” When we want a laugh we tell her she came out of mommy’s tummy. That makes her mad. “Nooooo, I born in a car-seat. I was a newborn…in the hospital!”

We’ve got to cut that out.

Oh, and just in case you were pegging Hannah as the brave one, she’s still afraid of her own poop.

I wish I had something more cohesive to write about, but I’m tired tonight. I cooked Easter dinner all by myself, including two pies, while the rest of my family was napping. Oh, how I love cooking in a quiet house with hours to get things ready. Oh, how I dislike cooking in chaotic conditions. This year Easter was not chaotic.

The dinner was delicious, if I do say so myself.

Ack, my mother used to say that after she cooked a good meal.

For the record, I did not say this out loud after dinner. I did however, lay down on the couch after dinner like my mother used to do after a big meal. Hmmmm.

What I don’t get about this process of officially becoming my wonderful, eccentric mother, is that her hair didn’t grey until she was about 58 and I started greying at 35.

Not. Fair.

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One last thing. I think it’s interesting that instead of wondering whether the Easter Bunny really came to our house last night, Rachel is wondering whether the Easter Bunny–a bunny in her mind–wore a costume when he/she came. A bunny wearing a costume. I keep telling her that I can’t help her too much in the Easter Bunny department. “I just put the baskets out. I’ve never actually seen the [the real] Easter bunny.” (She knows the Easter bunnies in the malls, etc. are people in costumes.)