I dropped by my neighbor Mary‘s today to introduce her to the splendor that is Taylor Ham, and she informed me that Easter Monday used to always be a holiday. Sounds good to me. We absolutely could have used a recovery day after several days o’ fun. We went down to NYC on Thursday and stayed until Saturday afternoon, when we visited my sister in New Jersey. She does an annual Easter Egg Hunt that is super-wonderful. She has this lovely yard with all sorts of fun-to-explore things like stone paths, a fountain, statues, and a hammock, and she packs it with roughly 2 jillion eggs. Yesterday’s kid crowd ranged from toddler to junior high and somehow each and every one of them happily hunted for a good ten or fifteen minutes and ended up with a full basket.
We arrived home at 8:15 pm and the girls just changed into pajamas and climbed into bed without a peep. Or, more importantly, a sob. I have to tell you: I am loving this stage of kid-dom. A year or two ago, any busy day or late night out would inevitably end with at least one child sobbing uncontrollably before passing out. Now they sink gratefully under the covers just like I would, if I didn’t have bags full of dirty laundry and leaking containers of leftovers to get under control.
This morning poor J was worried about getting back to school after sickness and the break kept her away for two weeks, but as soon as she left my 10-foot radius she squared her shoulders and girled up.
Today was also our first day of soccer. Cute W is once again coaching, and it makes for a crazy Monday, because both girls do art from 4:30-5:45 pm, then J’s game is 5:45-6:45 pm & M’s game is 7-8 pm. Yikes. When, you might wonder, are we supposed to eat? Well, we’re working the kinks out. Today the girls had thermoses of soup (and I’m willing to bet mine were the only kids eating potato-leek soup and crusty bread with goat cheese on the sidelines), but that wasn’t too convenient. Next time I’m going with sandwiches, I think. Speaking of things that didn’t work out, due to, as W calls it “a failure to communicate,” I ended up running up to W with the team t-shirts for the 5:45 game at approximately 5:48 pm. Auspicious beginning.
They all did great. J was somehow under the impression that they were only going to practice, so she had a mini-panic attack when she realized that they’d be playing a game, but she recovered and hustled quite nicely, thank you. W was like a Zen Master, especially when one little boy threw a fit when he wanted to go back in when it wasn’t his turn–he kept getting louder and more frantic, and W just got calmer and quieter until the kid’s dad yanked the boy away from the field for a less Zen-like encounter. And finally, M scored the very first goal of the season, which thrilled her.
Phew! That’s what’s going on at our house. Tomorrow I’ll tell you about where we went and what we did in NYC.
Big Sister
Taylor Ham sandwiches: white bread toasted, Heinz ketchup and crispy brown greasy TH remind me to this day of breakfast at Grandma Curley’s. She’d make you feel fat later — but she’d 0verfeed you before she did. PS: Easter without a new coat and hat (usually in a jaunty plastic raffia)/bag to match , color-coordinated dress, patent leather shoes and new opaque tights to show off in church (though with a pious demeanor as fits the solemn Mass) just isn’t Easter to me. Even with two jillion eggs. I remember still with great fondness a faux leopard muff (!!??) that matched a tasteful merino wool coat in cocoa and a jaunty beret in chocolate as an accent. Really too much for one ten year old to bear.
The Real Person!
The Real Person!
It always makes me think of Grandma Curley’s, too. But I don’t recall any fabulous outfits.