THE REAL DEAL

I TAKE IT ALL BACK!  The reason sappy and maudlin is so silly is that it's often based in fantasy.  (See post from 4/21/19).

Real deal on yesterday's Easter gathering:

I spent early Easter morning putting the finishing touches on the Easter baskets for the girls and hiding them.  I made sure all the stuffed eggs were ready to be hidden outside.  I set the table and pulled together a craft project for the girls to help decorate the table when they arrived.  I put on a pretty, frilly, lavender tunic and even earrings(!) instead of my usual hoodie.  I looked pretty!

Hub is the cook and he started to prep food.  Then we had a slight disagreement over whether he should prepare veggie-free eggs for the grandgirls who are picky about any weird things in their "normal" food.  I thought they'd balk at the veggie scramble and lobbied for plain "cheesy eggs", their favorite.  I won the argument, but the oldest decided to eat the scramble and the youngest decided not to eat her eggs at all.  (Well, except for plowing through the whites of 4 hardboiled eggs of various dyed colors.)  He was later happy to point this out to me and I recognized my tendency to anticipate and mitigate any possible discomfort others may experience.  (Apparently I will never learn to let well enough alone in that regard.)

Son One's family arrived first with smiles, hugs, and a giant fruit salad.  Son Two and his fiance arrived late with biscotti, their puppy, and what I perceived as a surly attitude from Son Two.  I went in for a hug, which was brief and returned without enthusiasm as he brushed by, mumbling, "I just need some coffee..." and made a beeline for the pot.  OK then.

I got the girls busy on the craft project as the adults gathered in the kitchen for coffee, biscotti, and mimosas.  Soon it felt the youngest granddaughter had been gone too long.  I went searching and found her alone in the bathroom, door closed.  Uh-oh.  I had hidden her Easter basket in the tub, thinking she wouldn't need to use the bathroom right away before the basket hunt commenced.  Well, she had found it and, alone, emptied it all over the bathroom floor.  My fantasy of all the adults going on the basket hunt, encouraging the girls, then sitting around them and oooing and ahhhing as they discovered the cool things the Easter Bunny had brought was dashed.

I was not upset with her, just asked her to bring her things out for all to see.  She refused.  She gathered them up, and decided to head to the closet in the Girls Room and wouldn't let anyone else see her things.  We left her to it.  Then again, it seemed she was gone a long time.  Oops.  The door had closed and she'd become "locked in" and no one heard her calling out.  It was only a brief time, but likely scary.  Once rescued, she still refused to let us all see her Easter things.

Big sister decided not to hunt for her basket right away and wanted to wait until after eating, at which point she went searching alone and unannounced and brought her basket to the kitchen and unloaded it on the countertop with only her dad and me standing by to watch; again thwarting my idea of having this be one of the highlights of the morning.  Oh well.

Brunch was yummy, although my meal was interrupted by youngest granddaughter needing to go potty and she strongly believes only I can help her.  This is a common occurrence and I don't mind at all; I've grown accustomed to eating cold food. 😉   At the end of the meal, our two family Game of Thrones nerds spent considerable time going over every plot point and fan theory of how it will all end.  I watch and enjoy, but had no idea the depth of knowledge and thought others put into it!  They were alone at the table by the time they'd realized the rest of us had moved on to other things.

After brunch Son Two, fully caffeinated at this point and in better spirits, went outside with me to the yard to hide plastic eggs.  Puppy came along and went wild running and rolling in the grass -- and finding the eggs!  We had to extract a couple from his excited jaws, but he'd downed the gummy worms and yogurt covered pretzels and was on the hunt for more, so we dashed around gathering up the lowest lying eggs and repositioning them, hoping the youngest would be able to find and reach them.

The hunt was mostly successful except for the puppy getting super excited to see what was in the baskets and at one point the youngest raised her basket over her head to protect her stash from curious pup, but she tipped the basket and all the eggs came tumbling down just at the edge of the yard where it drops off precipitously, but not too dangerously since there are thick bushes there.  Still, the eggs rolled out of sight, down the hill and under the bushes, necessitating Son One to go bush-whacking to retrieve them.  (We suspect a few are still down there since we came up short in the end.)

The girls brought their eggs inside and emptied the goodies into bowls but I soon discovered my attempt at "healthy treats" was not met with enthusiasm.  Guess nobody really likes dried banana chips or candied fruit.  The yogurt covered pretzels and cranberries were a hit, as were the Cheezits and gummy worms.  Good thing they each got one chocolate bunny in their baskets with toys, books, crafts, and clothes.

While the adults settled into various combinations of adult conversation, I spent time playing pretend with the girls (especially the little one) in a different room.  It was fun and the stuff of memories, but I also wanted to be part of the adult conversations.  I stole away from fantasy play for awhile to join in, continuing to take photos as I'd done all day, already planning my Facebook photo montage.  But at one point the talk turned to social media and Son One admonished me for my prolific posts.  (He who posts NOTHING, but obviously still looks at FB!)  My feelings got a little hurt, told him so, and he apologized, but point taken.  I only posted one photo of the day that night and let it go.  I've been told before by him (and others) that I post too much, and I realize more than hurt, I feel embarrassed, so again I'm going to limit my FB participation.  My desire for connections there with people I care about are rarely reciprocated anyway -- take a hint, Donna!

By mid-afternoon we were winding down...Son Two and Future DIL had other plans so they hit the road back to Seattle.  The grandgirls had been up at dawn for Easter baskets at their house, so they and their mom and dad were tired and ready for quieter family time and headed home too.  Alone, Hub and I looked at the remains of the day -- Easter grass everywhere, some tracked in mud from the garden, a stack of dishes to go in the dishwasher, Easter decorations to be dismantled and put back in the attic.  We had some work still to do.

As I went about the clean up tasks, I had to admit, it had not been perfect.  But my minor disappointments were just part of the experience.  I was grateful to have a family where no one yelled; no one hit their kids (we don't do that in our family!); the pup didn't run away or poop on the carpet; no one slammed doors or left in a huff; no one got drunk or fell asleep or turned on the TV to escape; no one even looked at their cell phones for any length of time -- only mostly to take photos.  As family togetherness goes, we do a pretty darn good job.  At the end of our time together, everyone eagerly got out their calendar to schedule the next family gathering, which will likely also be imperfectly real...and on it goes.

At least, that's the view from here...©
Photo Credit:  www.pixabay.com