EASTER WEEKEND

It's been a busy week at work and every time it gets overwhelming I try to conjure back up the peaceful feeling I had all weekend. Just recalling how relaxed I was just a few days ago seems to help relieve some of the stress, so I'm hanging on to that, and employing all sorts of other remedies to rescue myself from ... myself. 

The baby must be going through a growth spurt because all of a sudden I feel huge, and the belly seems to be growing even bigger every single day.  This weekend I looked down and it was like beholding a dinosaur egg, and then this past week I'm nursing all sorts of back pain.  Not surprisingly, it is notably harder to carry Sloane around- I have to either do a slung to the side situation or over the belly hold, which doesn't last very long. But I can't help wanting to hold her; growing this new babe reminds me of what Sloane was like when she was just born and I realize how little time there is of just her and us, and how when the new baby comes Sloane really won't be the baby anymore. I find myself going from excited to nostalgic to worried and back to excited, all in a matter of a few minutes- totally normal, right?

 Also, short sleeves! Yellow nails! Flip flops and sandals!

Sloane now has gotten a taste of the short sleeve weather now and asks, EVERY MORNING, "Mom, is it warm today?"

I purposefully eschewed all things Easter-related the past couple of weeks, and by that I mean I ignored the dollar section at Target which was increasingly filling up with adorable bunny and egg related items every time I walked by, but then last Thursday I happened to be in there and meandered through its aisles and gave in.  I put together a little Easter basket for her and thought to myself, I'm one of those moms now! and got really excited to give it to her. I filled a small watering pot with bunny ears, bubbles in a container shaped like a carrot, a bunny cup and some stickers.  Here she is practicing some of her best bunny hops. 

Before I gave her the 'basket', we sat down so that I could attempt to explain what Easter was actually about. We've been reading about the Easter story for the past couple of weeks and that's when I learned it is not an easy thing to explain things like death and resurrection to a two and a half year old, so I've been thinking a lot about it and it's been the sort of challenge that I am finding really fun and humbling as a parent.  One thing I am learning is that it is essential to keep talking about things with your child, because her perspective and her level of understanding keeps changing and developing, and setting the precedent of having conversations about the meaning behind this and that, is significant.  

One Easter tradition that I was planning on doing for weeks is to dye some eggs with Sloane; she's old enough to appreciate it and I get so excited to show her things like this. Look Sloane, you see this egg that we see everyday and eat for breakfast ? We are going to make it change colors! 

That's why it's fun dyeing eggs, right ?  You're basically getting to play with your food and dressing up something that you see everyday in the kitchen.  I wanted to try using natural dyes because I love the muted colors it makes and plus, it's neat to see what foods can act as a dye. We used beets for red, red cabbage for blue, blueberries for darker blues and tumeric and yellow onion for yellow. My favorite was the red cabbage and its blue shades.

We ate so well this weekend with Ken's family, maybe that contributed to the feeling I had that I was waddling around. The pregnancy waddle is real, my friends.   I'm happy to report that I got my dim sum fix and also ate too many sesame balls with yellow bean filling, which were soo good. 

On Sunday, we went to church with my mother in law and since it was Easter Sunday, all the kids went up to the front to to sing a song.  Sloane didn't know any of the kids there and she didn't know the song, but we asked her if she wanted to go up with them and to our surprise, she did! She stood up there during the duration of the song, looking wide-eyed and very solemn, and we were all so proud of her for being so brave. 

She wore a purple blouse and skirt for her Easter outfit and she flitted and floated around in that all day, and then the next day asked if she could wear the same outfit again. I really didn't want this weekend to end either! felt sympathetic and so we changed her into that when she got home from daycare on Monday so that she could flit and float some more.