Happy Easter!
We had a full, full, full day in celebration of Easter blessings. We were up late with friends helping the Easter bunny hide eggs for their children, so we ended up having to miss our morning service because Maeve slept in much later than usual. A tip for the other new mamas out there, if it's 10pm and your 18mo old hasn't slept much, and keeps stealing chocolate, take the chocolate back. Do not accuse your husband of stealing her holiday joy and allow her to indulge, because when you are still trying at 11:30pm to get her to sleep and she's screaming like a crazy person you will know you were wrong. You will have to swallow your pride and admit this, because you were a little snarky earlier, and it will not be pleasant. When in doubt, just say no to chocolate! (Unless it's in the pantry, while your toddler is watching Sesame Street.) So thanks to my parenting, we were up late at night and in the morning, which meant a delay in our celebrations. I was especially sad to miss service as this year it was in the park, and one of my baby ballerinas performed in service. So proud Novella!! Maeve was ecstatic to see the Easter Bunny had come and in lieu of candy (Really, what the heck was I thinking?!) brought her an Elmo, chalk, hair bows, bubbles and stickers. If we haven't spoken lately, you may not know that Elmo, next to our dog Dutchess, is Maeve's nearest and dearest. I am not exaggerating when I say he and the dog are the first things Maeve asks for in the morning. Thirty-six hours of labor and I am outranked by a puppet and a mischievous Boston Terrier. No surprise, Maevey almost didn't see the other goodies her basket had to hold for all her cooing over "baaaby ELMO!!!"
We skedaddled and made it in time for our church brunch at 10am, and Easter egg hunt-Maeve's first since she was only six months at last years. I was worried she wouldn't get the concept, or would sit and open each egg as she found it like I had heard other children did. Nope. She went as fast as her little suede-booted feet would take her searching for "colors--eggds" to put in her basket. Maybe it was Adam's pre-hunt pep talk, or the sweet pre-teens who were pointing eggs out to her, hidden in the grass, away from the big kids. Either way, she gathered up about twenty eggs for her basket. Twenty sweet-stuffed plastic treasures that I was too traumatized to let her indulge in after Saturday night. Maybe I'll find a time for them over the week.
We didn't make it home until 2:45pm and piled into bed for a family nap. Just Adam, Maeve, Elmo, cuppie, Dutchess, three books, and me in our, eh-hem, full-size bed. The perfect cap for a fun day of memories, we took our little family on our first bike ride together. Before I got pregnant with Maeve we were riding our bikes a lot, especially Adam who actually rode his to work! The problem for me was that children's seats, and wagons were so pricey! I had found a deal of a bicycle seat a few weeks ago at a JBF sale, but we realized later it was missing key pieces....woops! Luckily, my good friend Michelle was in the process of cleaning out their garage and had a bunch of wonderful hand-me-downs for us. Among them was a bike trailer that can fit several small children!! Yippee! We attached it to my bike and tonight Adam, Maeve, Dutchess and I looped the neighborhood before bedtime. All in all, about 3.5mi, not too shabby!
The weather has been so nice all weekend; high 70s with cool breeze and slightly overcast. I feel like we need to be outside constantly to enjoy it all before we're back to 112* and 90% humidity!!
Happy Easter from the O-ladies!!
