Ahead 14 Years, Back Two Days

Today in the work kitchen I ran into someone I used to chat with in the kitchen at the old building. He now sits on the posh side of the building, overlooking the lake, and as I am an interior burrow dweller on the land side of the building, we haven't passed in the hallway or seen each other at all for months. He told me he had taken some time off during his daughter's spring break to visit some colleges. I said, "Wow, college!" or some nonsense, and he took that to mean that it seemed so far in the future that I couldn't get my head around it. "It'll be here before you know it," he said.

But no, it wasn't that I couldn't conceive of it, it was that I felt it, right there with me, when he told me about the visits. I know my kids are growing up. They really are nowhere near college age, I get it, but it is so easy for me to look back at the changes in Naomi since she was born, and think about another fourteen years of changes rushing past us. I always assumed that a parent is in a state of constant nostalgia, missing the past incarnations of their child. I thought that's how it would be for me. In fact, though, I am wild about each new incarnation. I loved the newborn version, the baby versions, the toddler versions. True, I got a little teary when I saw a picture of how super tiny Naomi looked the day she was born. But the girls I have now, it always feels like, are the ones I like the best.

So it's weird to me that my nostalgia seems to be forward looking rather than backwards. I guess leaving home is a bigger event, a bigger impact than the changes I embrace every day or every week. It's kind of THE event, in a way. Funny that hearing about someone else's kids getting ready to do it makes my throat catch.

Anyhoo, Easter weekend was fun and Eastery. We had an egg hunt at church on Saturday, which was rainy and way too easy, but enjoyable. The woman who organized the thing warned us parents that although tinies were welcome to hunt eggs too, the prizes inside might not be appropriate for them. How those words rang in my ears later that day when I came around the corner and was greeted by the sight of Muriel using the hot pink Easter-themed ink stamp (from one of the eggs) over and over on her forehead. That stuff did NOT come off.


After the church egg hunt, it was home for some egg coloring. Jim's was the nicest, as Naomi agreed.


On the way to church on Sunday, I rolled the dice and told Naomi the Easter story. The preschool cliff's notes version. No particular gospel leaning, just the facts. She constantly demands that I tell her stories when we're in the car, and there was a good chance she was going to hear about it in church (no Sunday school on Easter!) so I thought I would mention the bad news, emphasize the good news, and see what happened. She was fascinated, of course, by the part where the main character in all her Sunday school lessons gets killed. But she doesn't really grasp what it means, so it wasn't too disturbing, I don't think. Hmm. Oh, and also during the church part of the day...they like to welcome new members on Easter, so despite having attended there for two years or something, we got to stand up on the altar and have everyone welcome us. Welcome, us!

We had more egg hunting at home...


and still more at our friends' house, where we also had a beautiful dinner. That guy can cook, I'm telling you.


We brought the disturbing bunny cakes, which, covered with cream cheese frosting, sweetened coconut, and candy, were like a diabetes bomb. Kaboom!


And that was that. Our house is now slightly more full of candy, little gewgaws, and stickers, stickers, stickers. So, a little late, Happy Easter to you all.