Easter Weekend

It was a busy weekend for a little girl. It started on Saturday when she woke up and discovered the Brown Bear, Brown Bear book daddy had picked up for her the night before. The grin on her face when she realized what that book was was priceless. It stayed there during two entire readings. She loves books, period, but Brown Bear is her all-time favorite. That’s one of the special circle time books in daycare. It trumps all others.

Later that morning we all drove out to our neighbor's church for their Easter egg hunt. I had no idea how big it was going to be. I heard someone say they filled 35,000 eggs. The field for the 2 – 5 year olds was covered. At 10:30, they were off. We’d already declared that we’d consider the hunt a success if Kate picked up one egg. That’s all we expected. I thought she would stand rooted to the spot watching all the other kids streak about. I underestimated my daughter. She picked up the idea quickly enough and was soon picking up egg after egg after egg and placing them in the bag. I have video proof. I believe we left the field with a minimum of 20 eggs, a very conservative estimate. I’m almost certain it was more.

We followed up the hunt with a few snacks in the church hall and about an hour running around on their playground. That may have been more fun than the hunt. I was thrilled with the playground. I’ve been wanting to take her to another since our first one two months ago. Once she overcame her initial reserve, she ran around from the swings, to the slide, up the ramps, over the bridge, and through the woods (okay, I’m exaggerating on that one) – she was unstoppable. And this time daddy had a chance to get in on the fun and be a daddy. I have some awesome pictures of the two of them together. Her smiles were perfect – absolute smiles of joy.

Because of the hunt and the playground, nap time was extremely late. She never went down to sleep until after 2:00. I was disappointed. We were going to the Easter Vigil for RCIA and we had to be there by 7:45. I was hoping to have her in bed before we left. She never woke from her nap until after 3:30. There was no way on earth she was going to go down for the night by 7:30. DH’s mom didn’t have a problem, though, so it worked out okay.

Speaking of the Easter Vigil, DH is now officially a Catholic. We never asked anyone to come to the Vigil. It was late and we knew it would be looooong. Imagine our surprise when we saw my uncle and his significant other at the back of the church. When DH ran back to invite them up with us, I spied my other uncle and his wife already sitting in a pew off to the side. I looked to the back of the church again, and there were my aunt with her daughter and son-in-law standing there, too. Her second daughter came a little later. My great-aunt (my grandmother's sister) was at her daughter’s in Bethlehem, otherwise she’d have been there, too. She was disappointed she wasn’t able to be part of the evening. You don’t know how touched we were, DH especially so. It was a very kind gesture and much, much appreciated.

Okay, a bit of a tangent. Back to Kathleen and her weekend.

Sunday, Easter Day, was another busy day. The morning started out calmly enough. Kathleen found her Easter baskets but she was more interested in dumping the plastic eggs from the hunt on to the floor and picking them back up. Otherwise, we had a typical Sunday morning. DH was hoping to eat lunch around 11:00 and get her down for a nap right after so we could take her to Bass Pro for a picture with the Easter Bunny by before heading to my aunt's after, but it didn’t happen. It wasn’t the greatest loss. I doubt she’d have been thrilled with the experience. Besides, we got a picture with one of the Easter Bunnies at the hunt, so we did get an Easter picture.

We drove to my aunt's after baby girl woke from her nap. It was a long afternoon for a little girl. We never returned home until 8:00. She spent her time there watching everyone say hi to her and taking her little hands in theirs. Alternately, she ran around playing with her second counsins' toys and drawing pictures with these wonderful objects called crayons. Mom was bestowed with a genuine Kathleen E. _____original for her fridge. It was a good afternoon.

And now it’s back to the usual routine. Kathleen needs it. She woke up off kilter again this morning. She doesn’t do well when her naps and bed times go awry, and she needs the return of her usual routine to put her back on solid ground. Just one more reason that I’m thankful for daycare, the most routine part of her life with just enough variety to keep her days interesting. Thank you Miss Mae.