Eggs and such

Easter weekend is over and the house is somehow STILL full of Easter candy -- shows I bought too much, since boos have been stuffing their faces with it since Sunday. I've been pretty good about not stealing it, though, so maybe that's the problem.

The kids had a four-day Easter weekend, but I only had a two-day weekend, plus I had to work late both Friday and Monday, so Rocket Boy had to do a lot of babysitting. He took them to a museum on Friday, and when I finally got home and they finally got home, I had to drag Kid A off to baseball practice, which seemed a little silly. Baseball practice on Good Friday? Not very many kids came, but that meant Kid A got to hit a lot. He tells me that's the only thing he likes about baseball.

Saturday was our traditional neighborhood Eggstravaganza, with a lovely egg hunt in the park and then various games afterwards. Above you can see part of the crowd waiting for the hunt to start. Many of the little girls wear darling flowered dresses to the event, so springlike. Makes me wish just the teensiest bit that I had a daughter. But only the teensiest.

Above are my boos, along with many other children and adults, hunting for eggs at the southwest end of the park. Babies and toddlers hunt in the sandy playground, but big kids have a huge expanse of green to cover. Most of the eggs are just lying on the ground in plain sight, but there's just So Much Ground.


Here we are with the spoils of the hunt, very similar to Halloween but different colors. After the hunt you have to take the candy out of all the eggs and then RETURN the eggs to the hunt organizers so they can be used the next year. I heard another mom admonish her child for eating the candy -- "It's too early in the morning for chocolate!" I didn't even try to make that point, as my boys shoveled candy into their mouths.


And here we are waiting in line to do the water balloon toss, which Kid B did maybe five times and Kid A maybe ten. The guys holding the catapult were very patient, even keeping track of who'd gone over and over, so that if a new kid wandered up they'd be put at the front of the line. My boys are still not strong (or heavy) enough to win the distance contest, though Kid A's arms are definitely strengthening up from baseball. But it's just fun to send a water balloon soaring across the lawn, over and over. The kids also greatly enjoyed hassling each other in line.

That afternoon we dyed eggs, after Rocket Boy got around to hardboiling them. I had only bought a dozen white eggs, and some of them cracked, so we only dyed ten. I didn't have to buy dye this year, because not only did we save the plastic cups and metal egg-dippers from last year, Rocket Boy saved the DYE in little plastic bottles. The orange had gone bad and we must have used up the purple, so we had blue, green, yellow, and pink. Kind of limited -- next year I'll definitely buy more dye. But it was moderately cool not to have to spend the money or wait around for the tablets to dissolve.

Easter morning began earlier than I would have wished, but not as early as it might have. I told the boos they could not get up before 7:30. I think it actually was more like 7:10, but that's OK, it wasn't 5 or 6.

I went out to the living room to sit and watch as they raced around finding things. Somehow I managed not to get a single photo of THEM, which seems sad -- just a couple of shots of their loot. This year they claimed not to believe in the Easter Bunny at all, and yet it was interesting to observe traces of belief. They'd say something like "Oh mom, why don't you just tell me where you hid it," and then in the next breath, "Why would the Easter bunny hide an egg THERE?" Maybe it helps that Rocket Boy and I divide up the chore of hiding things -- I handle the baskets and he handles the individual eggs. So he has no idea where the baskets are and I don't have a clue about where the eggs could be. He hides about 60 plastic eggs, each with five or six jelly beans in them, and since we have a very small house, the eggs go everywhere.

We had planned to drive out east and have lunch/dinner at the Pepper Pod in Hudson, but we got the time screwed up. Rocket Boy wanted to leave at 11, I wanted to leave at 12, he ended up taking a nap and we didn't leave until 12:55, getting us there at 1:45 -- which was when they closed for the day! I knew we were running late, I knew they would close early on Easter, but to hit it right on the nose and be too late -- very depressing. So then we drove around looking for another restaurant and finally ended up at Aunt Alice's in Longmont -- at 2:45. It was kind of a weird time to eat, but they were open and not busy, so it was fine. Rocket Boy had the ham special, I had a Reuben sandwich, Kid A had nachos, and Kid B had soup. Not very Eastery, but it's OK. I have a need to have some sort of special dinner on Easter, but no enthusiasm for cooking it. So this worked (though I was really sorry about missing out on the Pepper Pod).

Monday Rocket Boy took the twins and our neighbor Z swimming, while I went to work, and that worked out fine. And today the boys went back to school and in addition, Kid A went to the orthodontist and got his braces off! After almost 9 months! He told me afterwards, "The doctor asked me if I had a stick." "A stick?" I asked. "Yeah," Kid A said, grinning, "to beat the girls off with." He does look cute with straight teeth. Of course I forgot to take a photo, so I'll include one next time.

Now we just have to finish all this Easter candy (and the candy Kid A brought home from the orthodontist! -- all this sticky stuff that he wasn't allowed to have for the whole time he had the braces on), and then I can concentrate on finishing the semester and figuring out what comes next.