An Easter to Remember
Posted by Jenny on April 6, 2010
It wasn’t the greatest weekend. The kids seemed especially high-maintenance and difficult, or maybe that’s how they normally act and the fact that I haven’t been feeling great made it seem worse. Whatever the explanation, we all had some moments we’d rather forget. Of course, looking back on it today it all seems rather funny. I just wish I had realized it at the time.
There are so many random things that happened, I’m having a hard time figuring out how to relay them all to you…how about a list?
Things that went wrong Easter Weekend 2010
- Friday night Reilly peed her pants while we were outside (who knows why). She went in to change. I hear a knock on my bedroom window which is in the front of the house right above the driveway. Reilly has slid her naked self under the blind and is holding up a white dress. At this point you can only see her from the waist up and the dress is covering a good part of her upper body. I assume she is asking if she can wear it, so I shake my head “no”. She puts on her best “please Mommy” face, cocks her head to the side and sticks out her lower lip. I continue to shake my head emphatically and yell “no” (pointless I know, but it seemed necessary at the time). Next thing I know she is kneeling on the window sill with her naked body in all of its glory plastered to the window and I can tell she is screaming. Her eyes are closed and her mouth is wide open. Luckily I know all of my neighbors pretty well so it didn’t even occur to me to be embarrassed. I did start pointing wildly and saying “get down” to no avail. I was a little worried about her pushing on the second story window, so I decide I better go in and actually talk to her, since she is obviously unable to read my lips or decode my attempts at sign-language. As I’m walking in she is walking downstairs, all ready to go back outside, wearing the dress. OMG!! You have got to be kidding me. She says she didn’t hear me tell her “no”.
Egg coloring was Saturday night. I really don’t want to be my mother, I swear, but times like this I really get her more than I care to admit. She never colored eggs with us. My aunt and grandma did it with us every year. So I’m getting all the stuff ready, and dreading the mess, and the fighting, and the clean up and all I can think is that my mom should be doing this with the girls at her place. It’s only fair now that she’s a grandma. But Grandma isn’t doing it, I am and I’m telling myself, “Stay calm, stay in the moment, enjoy this time, messes can always be cleaned up, these are the times they will always remember.” I am almost believing it by the time we get started. I had told my husband to get three dozen eggs, but he thought two dozen was enough…really not sure why. We spend a lot of money unnecessarily so would wasting $1 on eggs really be that big of a deal? Immediately the girls are upset that they don’t each have their own carton. Then I say, you can each do six eggs. I know Tom and I know he will want to decorate some, so I think it will be easier to just give him six right off the bat instead of trying to share with the girls. He decides he doesn’t need any, so each girl ended up with eight to decorate. It’s all going pretty smoothly. Reilly gets hers done really fast, so I take her upstairs to get her bath. Next thing I know, Addy is screaming that Daddy took one of her eggs. I just close my eyes, shake my head, and offer up a silent prayer for patience. I’m aggravated that he took one of her eggs even though he said he didn’t want to decorate any and I’m aggravated with Addy for getting so ridiculously upset over a freaking Easter egg. I head back downstairs to mediate. I give Tom my best “I can’t believe you did that” look, but of course take his side when I try to talk to Addy. She can not be calmed down, she only had eight eggs to begin with, that’s four less than last year, and now she only has seven…the injustice of it all. It doesn’t take long for me to be as upset as the two of them because egg decorating has turned into “Family Feud”. Addy’s feeling bad because she ruined our family activity, Tom is trying to wash the egg to no avail and ends of cracking it in frustration, and I’m feeling exhausted by the whole thing and wishing for bedtime. I can’t help but think this will in fact be something the girls remember forever and it will come up for them in therapy. I am also wondering if anyone but me happened to notice that I made suggestions prior to the event that would have prevented the meltdown? Moral of the story…listen to Mom!! Next year, if we can’t get Grandma to take it on…four dozen eggs (one for each girl and one for daddy).
Addy Takes Egg Decorating Seriously!!
- Reilly is the first one up Easter Sunday. She wakes the rest of us. Tom heads downstairs with her and Avery. I am slowly making my way out of bed. Reilly immediately starts looking for her basket. I hear Addy say “If you see mine, don’t say anything.” Tom reiterates that request. The words aren’t even out of his mouth when Reilly announces that she found Addy’s basket. As if the egg disaster wasn’t enough, now Addy is devastated that Reilly has ruined the surprise of finding her basket. Tom offers to hide the basket for her so she can look. That calms her down, for about 30 seconds until she gets frustrated that she can’t find her basket and eventually asks her sisters to help her. Seriously, I couldn’t make this stuff up.
- All three girls have their baskets and they are sitting on the floor checking out the loot. Easter grass is flying (I hate that stuff, another thing I got from my mom). Tom is excited because I kept it simple this year and he can tell I didn’t spend a ton of money like I usually do. The girls are emptying eggs and comparing gifts. Addy sadly holds up the book she got and says, “I already have this book”. No way!! The Easter Bunny is supposed to be magic and all-knowing, how could he make such a rookie mistake? STUPID EASTER BUNNY. Now I’m left trying to explain that I can tell by the bar code on the back that the book can be returned to Target and she can just get something different. She is only a small step away from cracking the whole Santa/Easter Bunny/Tooth Fairy mystery, but miraculously she buys my explanation. Unfortunately, she says she wants the money instead of another book, but I can tell you for sure, the Easter Bunny doesn’t work like that.
- We make it through church, the girls look adorable, and we go and have a lovely brunch at my aunts. The kids make it through the egg hunt without any major disappointment and we head home. All three run outside to play. Of course they meet up with friends and everyone is talking about what they got from the Easter Bunny. Addy runs in yelling and crying, “The B’s got everything and I got nothing!” I’m truly ready to strangle her at this point. I told you we have issues with gratitude.
Needless to say, it wasn’t the blessed day it was supposed to be. At one point, Tom did ask the girls what their favorite part of Easter was. Avery said coloring eggs, Reilly said the candy, and Addy said hearing the story of how Jesus was raised from the dead to save us from our sins. How does she do that? I had pretty much given up hope that she in any way understood that the day wasn’t about her, that it wasn’t about candy and eggs and toys, then she goes and says something like that. I’ll never figure that girl out, I swear.
On Monday morning I took the girls to grandma’s house for a sleepover. We stopped at Toys R Us to buy Zhu-Zhu pets with their Easter Egg Hunt winnings. Who knew that the Easter Bunny gave Zhu-Zhu pets to everyone in the neighborhood but us? I got a call around dinner time that Reilly had put the pet in her hair and got it stuck. Grandma had to cut it out…that figures!! They’ve been gone for almost 24 hours and I’ve had lots of quiet time to myself. Maybe now we’ll be able to get through the rest of Spring Break happily, maybe we will all get along, maybe I’ll even do something fun with them like Easy Bake Oven, maybe I’ll be a little sad when they go back to school on Monday…ok, ok that last one was a stretch, but I do sincerely hope to end the break on a much better note than we started. Is that too much to ask?
So, I’m off to clean now, I only have eight more hours to myself!
Until later…
