Monday, April 17, 2006

Easter weekend bibs and bobs

(That's an expression my British sister-in-law uses—worth adopting, no?)

My parents visited this weekend and we had a great time. We hit our local children's museum for an egg hunt, which was a big success (we opted not to attend the one at our supermarket, which started at seven a.m.). Even Opie found a couple of eggs and was most proud of himself. Then I watched in disbelief as a bigger kid—she had to be at least 4 or 5—tried to take one of his eggs right out of his hand. I stopped her and said "No, that's his egg," and she wandered off. Pick on someone your own size, brat!

Saturday was an absolutely gorgeous day, in the 70s and sunny. Jo and my dad chalked a huge maze all over our driveway. It's been a big hit ever since. Every time we go outside we must walk the maze at least once. Our backyard and driveway are now officially strewn with all the big plastic toys of summer.

By 9:30 that night both my parents and Jeff were exhausted. I, on the other hand, was wide awake... anyone for a movie? Scrabble? Ice cream? Then I realized it was because they all had way more hands-on kid time than they're used to, while I had far less since our adult: kid ratio was 2:1.

The bunny hid some eggs for Jo to find. She's still talking about how hilarious it was that one of them ended up in her shoe. Of all places! Jeff is still complaining that the basket that same bunny left was sorely lacking in chocolate. Apparently the Peeps, jellybeans, and color-your-own-cookie-with-these-markers-made-with-supposedly-edible-chemicals were just not sufficient.

Then, this afternoon I was chatting with the mother of one of Jo's classmates. This is a woman whose motto is "more is more." Her daughter's birthday party lasted 5 (count 'em) hours and featured swimming, movies, dress-ups, face painting, food, cake, candy, games, two craft projects, and two goodie bags. So guess how many eggs she hid? Each one contained candy, coins, or some small trinket (a barrette, a seashell, a superball). A dozen? Two dozen? Try over a dozen dozen. 150 eggs. For one child. My mind is well and truly boggled.

1 comment:

Julie Marsh said...

What a great weekend! Where to start...

Lots of fabulous British expressions. My personal fave is "tickety boo".

I'm surprised Opie didn't give that big girl the smackdown all on his own.

Little Tikes - gotta love 'em. And a chalk maze? What a great change from the hopscotch squares we usually draw.

Smiling ruefully at your realization regarding hands-on kid time.

I think Tacy had one of those cookies last year. Yuck. But I have to agree with Jeff. Need more chocolate. Even in my shoes.

And I'm sure you can imagine my reaction to the 150 plastic eggs.