Easter Weekend

I know it’s been one week since I blogged, but it feels like it has been seven years. Partly because we partied hard last weekend and partly because I now have a head cold that’s really kicking my booty.

How was your Easter weekend? Ours was grand in the way that once it’s over I’m left to soak in a puddle of mush because I’m so overwhelmed with how pathetically wonderful my life is. I really scored the jackpot with my family and friends.

Beck of course is always an angel because that’s a given, kid’s not even a year old yet. Give me another year or two before the hard part comes! But Jace done did make us so proud last weekend. He’s such a sweetheart, this boy. Sometimes it’s up and down with attitude and all of that tough toddler stuff, but he’s constantly doing things to melt our hearts and make us proud. And would you know, even with an overload of chocolate we didn’t have a single melt down. Listen, I’m allowed to brag because we often have melt downs! We do not claim perfection at my house, no sir.

Do you ever feel like you are working so hard to teach your child and sometimes you feel you might give up because what is the point?! And then one day out of the clear blue sky, BAM. He does something that stuns you into disbelief and leaves you with a “holy smokes, we are doing something right!?!” kind of thing?

That happens to me, where I wonder if I’m teaching him anything at all and then one day I realize that HE GETS IT. And I can’t really take full credit because he was born with this personality that is all his own. I help him in the handling his strong emotions part, and answering his many questions, and teaching him to pedal his bike, and kissing his scrapes and feeding him meals. But other than that, this kid knows it. He knows it. He’s such a stud, man. He makes me proud.

Saturday when he stood at the front lines of the easter egg hunt where we were repeatedly reminded that “parents are not allowed to help their kids!”, I was a nervous wreck, letting him go in there all by himself. What if he gets trampled? What if he freezes up and doesn’t know what to do and doesn’t get any eggs? I was a silly mess. I knelt down beside him a few minutes before it was to start and said, “Now remember Jace, your strategy is to run farther down the field. Don’t stop and pick up eggs right away, run down to the middle and then pick up the eggs there!” He nodded and smiled, and I knew that I was the only nervous one. He had this.

Sure enough when the whistle blew he took off, leaving the beanie that once warmed his ears on the ground behind him. He ran and ran and kept on running. At one point he looked behind him and lit up when he realized that he was the leader of the pack, leaving everyone in the dust. And then he kept on running.

“Okay! Stop and pick up the eggs!” I called out, but he didn’t stop, He just kept going until he was all the way at the other end of the field, completely elated that he had beaten everyone in this “race”. Once he reached the other side he slid to a stop on the ground as if he were sliding into home base, with a sweet satisfied smile pasted on his face.

“Okay pick up the eggs!” Dad called from the sidelines.

He grabbed a bright green one.

“Okay, keep get some more!”

He slowly walked around to find another green or blue, taking his time while the mass of children finally caught up to him. He found another green egg and tried to fit in his hand with the first egg he held.

“Put it in your basket! The basket!”

He picked up yet a third egg and spent some time trying to squeeze all three eggs into his tiny palm.

“YOUR BASKET! Use your basket, Jace!!”

Oh yeah, the basket! He dropped his three eggs in the basket and then looked below him for another.

Four eggs. That’s what he got before the field was bare. When we met him on the field he was so very proud of his winning the race and finding four eggs, all blue and green, except one pink one that “I got for you mom! Cuz it’s your favorite color!”

I love this kid. And I can always count on him for a good laugh.

On Sunday afternoon we pulled out the slackline for something to do and it was a huge hit. The day was sunny with a slight breeze and we spent most of the afternoon balancing on the slackline while the kids rode their bikes around, baby beck sitting content on a blanket in the front yard and getting his first little sunburn patch on his chunky thigh, and all we needed was some tall pines and a smoky campfire. It’s all making us incredibly anxious for camping season. Which is terribly repetitive because isn’t everyone itchy for summertime right now, for one reason or another? So I won’t bore you with words on that matter, like how we are pretending its summertime anyway by eating dinner on the back lawn while wearing shorts (or as Jace calls them, “short pants”) only to end up wrapped in blankets and beanies and freezing our buns off as soon as the sun began its inevitable decent. Or how I promised Jace a trip to the skate park today after school, only to find the forecast filled with rain all day and night. Or how much I’m looking forward to our garden being filled with fully sprouted peas and dirty covered onions the size of our fists. But it’s April now and that’s about that because it’s all but here! May is basically in our backyard! Really, I’m very pleased with April and even though I’m anxious for the activities of warmer days, I’m not one bit complaining about this delightful Spring. Summer is almost here, consider me satisfied.

Happy Wednesday to you! I think I’ll do shots tonight to celebrate. Shots of Nyquil, that is.