Eggs on Eggs

My mom is something of a holiday decorating master. With each holiday, she pulls out a giant plastic bin stuffed full of various tchotchkes to wow the neighbors, provide a cultural experience for the hoards of foreign-born Americans that have been part of her life since she married my foreign-born father, and generally baffle and amuse her children.

This spring, Mother Nature must have heard about my mom's decorating prowess. She wanted to get in on the game.

The focal point of my mom's Easter display is a large wreath that she hangs on the front doors of the house. The wreath is made of straw and grass and twigs and other natural items and then covered in unnaturally pastel ribbons and oversized wooden eggs.

This past Easter, she put out the wreath as usual, but this time some birds decided that my parents' front door was as good as spot as oh say a tree or a birdhouse, to build a nest. My mother left the nest undisturbed and before she knew it, there were four bright blue eggs in it -- hanging right on the front door.

Here's a picture.



And a close-up, just so you can see that I am not messing around with you.


I did not initially believe my mother. Why would birds build a nest in an area with so many people coming and going? Why would they build their nest on something that actually moves, swings in and out with some regularity? Won't they get seasick or doorsick or something? There was no appropriate answer to this. Perhaps the birds were kind of dumb. My mother took care of them as if they weren't. In any case, I had every cause to believe my mother. She does not lie. Or at least if she does, she fesses up to it almost immediately. It's like a tic.

The eggs, as you can see in the picture, were the bright blue green of robin's eggs, but strangely large. "It's as if," my mother said, "the robins are trying to compete with the large, fake Easter eggs." Compete indeed.

As these things go (see "birds and bees"), a short time later, my mom found these:

And once again, a close up:

Baby birds can look a little creepy -- they are so wide-eyed and wide-mouthed. Sorry, the angle isn't great, but my mom didn't want to freak out the birds too much.

So why, you might wonder, am I only blogging about this now, months after the event. For all of her decorating, traveling, and nurturing over-achievements, my mother is not as tech savvy as digital cameras require (yet). The pictures were trapped in her camera until my brother made it home for a visit.

Digital pics set free, my mom downloaded and attached these photos for me. She even wondered if it was an event she should blog. I'm saving her the trouble (or biting her idea, maybe).