Despite the fact that A.J. is now home and our life is back
to normal, I still am completely sleep deprived. For good reason- holiday preparations and
celebrations with the kiddos and fam.
This was a near perfect Easter.
Egg dying on Saturday at my sister’s house. Watched “Hop” with our munchkins Saturday
night and soon after they and I conked out on the couch, we moved them to their
beds and I set about doing the bunny hop.
One of the best reasons to have children is for holidays. And most holidays involve children getting
candy thus parents end up with easy access to the stress relieving powers of
chocolate. And I have found that Reese’s
peanut butter cup eggs go very well with coffee- especially when you have about
six of them. Okay maybe more, but I lost
count.
Sunday morning the kids popped up raring to go see what the
Easter bunny had brought them and to do our little egg hunt in the living
room. After a candy-filled breakfast, we
scurried to get ready for church. Now
this would be no problem if I had actually set shoes out the night before with
the kids’ outfits, but of course I hadn’t and there was the usual I can’t find
a darn pair to fit the kids, just throw everything around until I find any pair
that will fit and look somewhat nice.
Add to this tornado, the running list in my head of items I needed to
bring to my sister’s house which we were heading to straight after mass. And when all hope of being on time is gone, I
resort to the prayer I have been saying at least a couple times a week since
becoming a parent(usually I am saying this while attempting to make it on time
to church). “I’m trying my best, God. I
swear.” And “We’re doing our best.
Someday we will be on time.” I
imagine God to answer me with something like this: “No, Cami, you will probably
never be on time, but keep trying” with a smug grin on His face- afterall He
made meJ
. So after loading the kids and pretty
much every item into the already overflowing Gray Goose, we headed to church
leaving the house ten minutes after mass started. Upon getting a block away, we saw a bunch of
other cars heading into the church parking lot.
Could it be that there are other people as late as us?? Then I
remembered something that our church does- they moved some of the mass times
later than usual. Sweet Jesus! Yes, Virginia, there is an Easter Bunny! We were on time for mass. On Easter.
We actually got a place to stand in the back. The last two years we have ended up pretty
much outside in the courtyard for both Christmas and Easter masses.
Hooray! In every
mom’s mind there is this perfect vision of every family member looking super
cute and put together in their holiday best making it through mass with only
minor interruptions to those around them.
All four kids in Easter outfits- check.
Somewhat occupied- check. Josie
had her Furr Real Bunny and the two middle boys had their Angry Birds which the
Easter Bunny brought them and Bart was fast asleep in the stroller. The older three did a great job for almost
the first half of mass. Then there was a
quick descent to Jimmy lying on the floor first using his stuffed Angry Bird
for a pillow then actually using the feet of the older gentleman who was
standing next to us. The guy had a great
sense of humor about it though and said how cute the kids were. Sawyer and Jimmy started whacking each other
with their Angry Birds. Then in addition
to the gradual fading of my children’s self-control, more and more people filed
into the lobby with us. All of the
Christmas/Easter(“Chreaster”) mass-goers.
Sawyer was squatting on the floor by me and began rubbing his hands up
and down my leg most likely due to the fact that he was amazed at how smooth it
was since I had actually shaved. Finally
A.J. waved the flag of defeat and offered to take the older three outside which
should have been a fairly calm transition except that Jimmy refused to walk and
made A.J. carry him and they took off with Josie weaving through the crowd to
the doors, leaving me standing there helpless holding Bart who had by now woken
up and Sawyer who was refusing to get up and starting to cry because he wanted
me to hold him. There I am holding the
baby trying to politely bend down in my dress to also grab Sawyer, hoping no
one is getting a nice flash of my underwear or untoned butt. A
woman right next to me offered to hold Bart so I could pick Sawyer up
explaining that she herself had four kids, she had “been there”. At first I hesitated, but then I gave in to
help which is something I should do way more often. A.J. came back and hoisted Sawyer away to the
courtyard to play. Leaving me alone with
Baby Bart who was happy as long as I was holding him and bouncing him. He has started to try to chew on anything and
everything. So he was now chewing on my
shoulder, not a big deal until about five minutes later when I realized he had
spit up the nice chunky cottage cheese-like baby spit up all the way down my
arm. I also realized that the man next
to me must have definitely noticed this much sooner than I had. Nothing like going from feeling somewhat
pulled together and looking a touch classier than my usual attire of worn in
jeans, t-shirts, and flip-flops to acknowledging that you have baby barf
running down your arm. And even better
when you realize you have no burp cloth with you so you just use the baby’s
taggly blankie to wipe it up.
We made it through mass and both of us actually managed to
get Communion. We soaked in the
beautiful sunshine as we made our way to the car. Sawyer made an attempt to jump in front of a
car that was going through the parking lot and A.J. grabbed him just in
time. Got to my sister Yvette’s and her
husband Nick’s house where I made my peeps pose for some family photos since we
were all decked out- not sure we even got one nice one, but what we got was
real. Spent the rest of Easter Sunday
enjoying time and lots of food with the fam.
I even had a few moments here and there just to sit and be thankful for
how great the day turned out. Hoping
your Easter was a “hoppy” one!
No comments:
Post a Comment