Mar

27

Easter Weekend

March 27, 2005 |

So for those of you that celebrate Easter, how was your weekend? Ours was busy, happy and good with a downward turn towards the end of the festivities.

Yesterday we went to my mother-in-laws and met up with the rest of the family to head out to the annual Easter Egg Hunt. This is an EVENT her husband’s family puts on and I do mean it is a major affair. This family is a long standing, well known, well respected member of the farming community in our area. And every year about a month before Easter they start filling the plastic eggs you can buy in the dollar store with candy, stickers, erasers etc. Everyone in the family helps and by the end of the 4th week there are over 4000 of these plastic eggs ready to go.

They begin at 8am, covering the meadow with these treasures. It takes a little over 3 hours to carefully disperse all 4000 so that there are plenty that are easy for the youngest of egg hunters to discover and at the same time there are plenty that are a challenge for the seasoned veterans to find. This year there were nearly 100 children. It took 8.3 minutes to clean the field of every colorful dot.

My own children each enjoyed themselves in their own right. Nick and Olivia ran to the back of the field with the “big kids”. They filled their bags easily. Jeff took Elizabeth on her adventure and she simply could not be bothered. She didn’t want to pick them up herself, obliged her father by holding open the bag and then after a few smiled up at him and said “Okay Daddy, that’s enough. I don’t need anymore.” Lauren was happy just to watch all the other kids run by her with their determination written all over their faces. When she finally realized there was indeed a task at hand, she would spot the egg I was pointing out to her and run as fast as her little legs would carry her yelling “I got it! I got it!” in her hesitant 2 year old pattern. We shelled the eggs, kept the contents and returned the containers for next years festivities and then enjoyed the most fantastic potluck dinner. The best of country living :)

We returned to Grandma’s today for the traditional ham dinner. The weather was gorgeous and I took the kids outside to play before our meal was ready. It was 50, our warmest yet this spring and the smiles on the kids’ faces were undeniable. That look of knowing that warm weather and playing outside all day and into the night is just around the corner. That stretching of their wings after being locked away y all winter - the brass ring almost within reach. And then it happened. The downward spiral.

It began with Lauren. One minute she was running around on the grass, the next minute she was purging her candy breakfast on the driveway. Elizabeth was mere seconds behind her - letting lose on the driveway not 2 feet from her little sister. We chalked it up to poor breakfast, dehydration and hunger as dinner was running late. They wouldn’t eat no matter what we offered. Right after dinner Lauren fell asleep in my lap for a little over an hour. We made it almost until we left and then another wave hit Lauren and the scrubbing of the rugs ensued. We left, without my husband as he was heading out of town overnight, and made it half way home before Elizabeth was hit again. I stopped the van and got out and tried to clean her off as best I could and she said “I just want to go home Mommy.” So off we drove.

We were here only half an hour before the next symptom of this virus hit. Symptoms I know all to well as this is the 4th time since November my family has been hit with this “virus”. So now here I sit at 11:30pm waiting for my sheets and blankets to dry, constantly listening, waiting on point for that cry. It’s come from each of them once so far but I hope they are over the majority of it. Their father better be having a lousy time.


Comments

1 Comment so far

  1. mrs. diamond on March 28, 2005 9:47 am

    Sounds like you were having a wonderful time until………. the yuckies
    The easter egg hunt sounds fabulous!!!!
    So sorry there’s sickies in your house! (hugs) for mom

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