Easter Wrap-Up

We had a lovely, if quiet, Easter. T was 500 miles away in New Town and the grandparents were at the ranch, so it was just the kids and me. We had been having gorgeous perfect weather, so what happened on Easter eve? Thunder storm. With hail. It beat the heck out of my beautiful (brand new) pink geraniums. Sigh.

So I just moved the festivities indoors. I dressed the kids in their Easter ensembles - Z with a long sleeve shirt underneath - and set them loose on the Easter baskets. Even though they had almost identical contents, Q was obsessed with everything in Z's basket. Of course. So tears were shed. Z was so sweet trying to tempt him with offerings from his basket, "Look, Q! Sun glasses! And a bubble sword!" But eventually she lost patience and reverted to the tried and true, "MINE!"

Then I stuffed the kids into my room and hid eggs all over the rest of the house. It was a ridiculous number of eggs for two small children, but what can I say? I'm a sucker for holidays and happy children. Z is a notoriously bad look-er. Basically, if she didn't trip over it, she can't find them. Hmm... she's the same way with shoes! Q, on the other hand, was a surprisingly good egg finder. He is slower moving and more methodical.

It didn't matter who found what because in our house, all candy is communal. We had a big bowl and the kids and I emptied the contents of all the eggs into it. As we were doing this, I conducted a little parental experiment. All the feeding books say that young children will self-regulate food intake if given the opportunity, so I let them eat the candy without any restrictions. Sugar isn't taboo at our house, so it wasn't like they didn't ever get to have candy. My kids? Hovered over the candy bowl like two little pigs at the trough. The only thing slowing them down was their fine motor skills - they couldn't get the wrappers off.

After about an hour, I decided that I would intervene so that I didn't have to clean up anything disgusting later. I attempted to feed them lunch then the sugar crash hit. Everyone was cranky and whiny. They fought it, but they both conked out and took nice long naps.

The only thing the day needed to be perfect was T.