EASTER HIGHLIGHTS AND LOWLIGHTS:

1. The new baby Gabby making such massive cake at the Easter dinner table that she leaves a fresh green skidmark on the pant leg of her father, who takes it in stride (this is the same nephew who did not flinch when the Christmas raisin he held in his hand last December turned out to be Windy City dog poop).

2. Dreyfus accidentally flooding his salad with Italian dressing and creating a salad moat and being mercilessly ribbed. "I thought it had one of those [regulator] things on it!" he keeps saying.

3. Hurricane Layna saying "Grandpa DREY-fus." She enunciates incredibly well for one so young and new to speech.


4. Dreyfus and Caca falling asleep on the easy chair couch thing (each section has its own reclining mechanism) during golf on Sunday afternoon... until Hurricane L. awakens from her nap and starts "making DRUH-ums."

5. Dreyfus and Caca making the traditional pilgrimage to Meijer, where Dreyfus admonishes Caca not to wear "that stupid hat with the f-cking cat ears" inside. Once in the store, he ceaslessly scolds Caca for repeatedly abandoning the shopping cart and running off each time something new strikes her fancy. Apparently it's just not done. Dreyfus shows extreme embarassment when Caca pulls out her nylon shopping bag and asks the cashier to bag her groceries in it.

6. Dreyfus inspecting Caca's reusable water bottle and sniffing it over and over -- and then asking everyone else to sniff it and passing it around as if it were a bong. "Ewwww! It SMELLS! There's green stuff in the lid!" After this high-pitched exclamation, Mrs. Dreyfus immediately jumps up, takes the bottle to the kitchen sink and bleaches it. Later, she runs it through the dishwasher. The next day Dreyfus tells again and again the story of how he "had to use a toothpick to get the green stuff out" and says "No wonder she's been throwing up all the time. It's that bottle!"

7. Hurricane Layna's parents returning from the Cubs game in Milwaukee and giving a full report. Only one entrance to the parking lot was open, and it took them an hour to get in and park. You could not get a hot dog -- nor did they have brats -- and beers were $7.25. The idiots could not make change. You'd give them $10.25 and they'd look at it, stunned, and then disappear and not return for a long time. It took the nephew an entire inning to get his food at the concession stand. They were seated near a-holes. Well, not entirely. Some people in front of them were eating flatbread, and during the Village People song they sang "Matzo matzo matzo man!"

8. Caca and Dreyfus realizing that they like playing with cat toys as much as Mr. Bigglesworth (the cat) and Hurricane Layna, and laughing so hard over a new made-up game involving cat toys and Layna's easel that they almost wet their pants. Even Layna does a few slam-dunks, which brings on new bursts of laughter.

9. Mrs. Dreyfus admonishing Caca and Dreyfus for lobbing a heavy dodgeball decorated like an Easter egg at the easel and almost wrecking it. They can barely stop laughing long enough to apologize and promise they won't do it again.

10. Drey and Caca getting Layna to say "slap happy." By now she has been downgraded to a tropical storm.