April 1st – Sneaking up on two beautiful little ballerinas in a computer game trance.
April 2nd – Throwing open the windows and letting spring come bounding inside.
April 3rd – Devouring Frito Pie and day-before-Easter chocolate in our new tent and feeling quite at home.
April 4th – Hiding eggs full of sugary treasures around our campsite for the girls to run and dance and climb and twirl and stumble upon throughout the morning.
April 5th – Ordering drinks at Natalie’s 2,000-year-old thermopolium in downtown Pompeii.
April 6th – Unloading a haul of bright, zesty Sorrento lemons and imagining the many ways we’ll enjoy them this spring.
April 7th – All of us feeling more relieved that we realized to swing back into our weekday routines.
April 8th – Commencing Operation Limoncello 2010 with visions of sparkling Christmas gifts dancing in our heads.
April 9th – Falling asleep after a difficult day on my beloved mattress with my beloved husband and a new day waiting in the wings.
April 10th – Picking out the brightest, friendliest flowers we could find [on sale] to color in-between the lines on our balcony.
April 11th – Spying on the girls as they channeled their engineer dad and constructing amazing, imaginative worlds out of Duplos.
April 12th – While flipping television channels just before bed, stumbling onto an incredible burping rock duo and falling in love with Italian programming all over again.
April 13th – Being quite literally floored by a kiss attack from Sophie.
April 14th – Finally finding the words that had been eluding me all week and revising my position on life being over, etc.
April 15th – Saying good morning to the new flowers blooming and thriving and throwing wild tea parties in their planters.
April 16th – Hand-writing a letter in a pool of pure golden sunshine on the balcony.
April 17th – After breathing in clouds of fresh pollen all day long, realizing my eyes don’t itch and my sinuses haven’t closed and I’m not tempted to gouge out my skull with a salad fork; thank you, allergy vaccinations!
April 18th – Staying after church to eat gnocchi and lemon mousse and catch up with friends we haven’t seen in too long.
April 19th – Leaving the dishes to their own devices and playing a hilarious game of kickball in the backyard with the girls.
April 20th – Riding the essay submission high, like pot-laced caffeine with extra sprinkles.
April 21st – Butchering a favorite children’s song into a potty-time ditty to the girls’ utter amusement (and their father’s utter head-shaking).
April 22nd – Being treated like the customer of the decade by a sweet saleslady at the ritzy, glitzy profumeria while I rooted through the discount bin for their cheapest lime-grapefruit lotion.
April 23rd – Resurrecting a childhood favorite and playing Giddyup Little Horsey until the girls collapsed from laughter.
April 24th – Spending some quality time in the pages of The Princess Bride after far too long apart.
April 25th – Staying up half an hour too late and being rewarded with a Liberation Day fireworks show.
April 26th – Cheering on my timid Natalie as she rode her bicycle around and around the balcony, crashing and jumping back up with a grin of accomplishment.
April 27th – Getting a delightful letter in the mail from an old friend.
April 28th – Swinging at the otherwise empty playground with Sophie after early-morning errands.
April 29th – Wishing I had some fresh asparagus to fix with lunch and then being completely surprised by a friend who stopped by mid-morning simply to bring me a beautiful bouquet… of asparagus.
April 30th – Ending up €1.39 short at the grocery store but having a new friend unexpectedly show up in line behind me and pay before I realized what she was doing; closing out the month remembering to believe in little miracles.
