Easter: Not just eggs

We had a wonderful Easter weekend with my brother and his family in Naples. Despite my mom still not feeling quiet up to par, we managed to fill our hearts (and baskets) with love, play and wonderful food. My SIL put together a fab spread for Easter morning lunch/brunch and even though we did not make it to Mass this year, it was wonderful to be with our extended family.

After lunch/brunch, we hid almost 200 eggs in my brother's huge yard for the kids. For the first time ever, all of them were old enough to participate in the egg hunt. It was so much fun to see the older ones (ages 3-11) running as fast they could to find as many as the could. A took it slower - he was very methodical in his egg-seeking: you look on the bench, under the bench, carefully between each bench slat and finally do a careful survey of the bench and its environs, just to be sure. And all with an ultra-serious look on his face as if he had finally figured out that the finding and collecting of eggs was his main mission in life. So cute. This being Florida, we don't even fill the eggs. We used to, back when there was just my nephew and we would hide about a dozen eggs, but we quickly found that almost any candy (even jelly beans!) will melt, mush or otherwise disintegrate in the punishing Florida heat. And we had a problem too with any undiscovered eggs later attracting ants, roaches and other vermin to the scene. So, because there are so many kids in the family now, and they all get baskets with candy and treats anyway, we skip that part of the ritual.

This week is D's Easter Vacation from school. I'm trying to strike a balance between planning fun activities and giving her lots of downtime, but either way it means that I'm twice as busy during the day as usual. And? A has finally given up his nap. Sigh. He's gone from my baby to a toddler in a blink of an eye. And wouldn't you know it? I've got that weird longing to hold a baby, cuddle a baby, to be pregnant again. I mean I know at almost 42 years old it isn't the most practical thing to want, but the yearning is there sometimes. I think M feels it too. Since 2002 our main focus has been on having kids -- now we're moving on to raising them.