The Gator, The Kite, and The Golden Egg

 

Whoever said "love grows best in little houses" did not host Easter weekend with eight adults, 3 children under four, and two dogs (one very small and needy, one very large and needy) in a two bedroom, two bathroom house that was already overflowing with baby toys, diapers, and way too much scrapbooking stuff.  This weekend my sister and brother-in-law, their girls (Ruby, age 3 and Emmie, age 2) and their dog (a poodle aged 963 in human years), my parents, and my grandparents came to visit me, Steve, Gracie & our dog, Belle (she would be the big, needy dog - the one who's terrified of storms and tries to run inside the house every time she hears thunder).  My sister and her family stayed with us and my parents stayed with my grandparents at their house down the street.  But, we all spent most of the time at my house. There were moments during the weekend when I felt like the last clown in the tiny car at the circus.  Gracie, of course, took full advantage of the situation, trying many times to sneak out the front door and head full-throttle toward the street.  I guess she figured, "Hey, there's so many people here, who's going to miss the littlest one?"  The flaw in her logic was, while she is the littlest one, she's also the loudest, so she never made it very far.

 

Luckily, while my house is very, very small but it has a yard that's very, very large and we live about twenty minutes away from the nicest playground I've ever seen, so I survived the weekend that might have given amoebas claustrophobia.  On Saturday morning, we loaded all of the babies (or two babies and a big girl - my 3-year-old niece might take offense at being called a baby, and I'm pretty sure that within another week or two she'll be able to read this column, so I better be careful what I say about her!), their car seats, a couple of kites, fifteen diaper bags, and four adults (my husband was working - which was probably a good thing, because we'd have had to strap him or Gracie to the roof - she does have a very safe car seat, so I'm sure she would have been fine on the luggage rack) into my sister's van and headed off to the playground.  One of my favorite things about this playground is they have a section for kids under five and one for older kids.  Why can't they have little kid sections everywhere - stores, restaurants, libraries? The world would be much safer and quieter (for those in the non-toddler section).  We spent a good two hours sliding down slides, crawling through tunnels, and Gracie's favorite - playing in the "water squirter".  At the front of the park is an open wooden walkway.  At the beginning of the walkway is a big, plastic doorbell-looking button.  When you push it, water mists out from both sides of the walkway.  Gracie must have spent over an hour running back and forth through the mister.  Her face, hair and clothes were soaked.  And, as an added bonus, the floor of the walkway is dirt and evidently moist dirt tastes delicious to my baby.  Oh, well, she's not fond of vegetables, so maybe dirt is giving her some type of nutritional value.  We finished playing, loaded up the van again and headed home. 

 

That night we all went to a seafood restaurant for dinner.  Steve was still at work, but somehow I managed to get Gracie fed (her staple grilled cheese sandwich and lots of bisque) and grab a few bites for myself between picking up thrown pacifiers and dropped sippy cups, all without managing to wear either Gracie's dinner or my drink on my new shirt.  My dad read the specials to Ruby off of the chalkboard.  "Acapulco Shrimp, fried Tilapia, Alligator Appetizer,"  Ruby squeals with delight - "Oh, oh, I want Alligator."  So, we order alligator for her.  When it arrives, she tries it with gusto.  And announces that it is good.  Not to be outdone by her older sister, Emmie points to the plate and says "Want Aggigator!"  My sister puts a little on her plate and she tries it.  After one bite, her face lights up with sheer joy and pride.  "I eatin' Aggigator!"  Oh, to be that proud of eating something again - these days my pride comes from NOT eating everything in sight.  Gracie, of course, wants to do anything that her cousins do (they are, after all, her closest role models).  I couldn't quite give in to gator, though.  She has only been eating non-baby food for a couple of months and I couldn't remember reading anywhere on the internet or in my What To Expect books that said when it was safe to feed reptile to a baby......

 

On Sunday, after church and a traditional Easter dinner, we migrated outside to let the girls play with a croquet set that the Easter Bunny brought for them.  My brother-in-law pulled his kite out of the car, so, of course, I had to get mine out too.  So, there we are, flying kites, trying to get them above the trees.  I watched my brother-in-law run down the street trying to get his kite airborne and laughed like I haven't laughed in months.  Then I looked back out across the yard.  There was my darling baby, swinging in her Teddy Bear swing, flanked by an adoring grandmother and great-grandmother and there was my beloved sister, my best friend, laughing and playing with her own two baby girls.  Some moments are just sublime.  Then my brother-in-law got his kite caught in the tree (probably because he was trying so hard to avoid getting his kite tangled with his annoying sister-in-law's).  He had to climb the tree to get it untangled.  Gracie was fascinated.  She pointed animatedly at the tree and shrieked, "Dat, Dat - Want Dat!"  Unfortunately for her, tree-climbing is right up there with gator-eating on her mommy's list of what she can't do until she's at least two. 

 

After the kite was freed from the "kite-eating tree", we made an attempt at an Easter Egg hunt.  My sister and brother-in-law hid the eggs (I was busy trying to keep Gracie from running into the street after she was freed from her swing).  Ruby and Emmie ran round and round the yard, jumping up and down every time they discovered a hidden egg.  I finally got Gracie to climb into the flower bed and showed her an egg hiding in the birdbath.  She smiled and I thought, "Oh, she's going to put the egg in her basket."  Nope, she proceeds to splash all of the water out of the bath and then toddles off, leaving the egg behind.  About that time, I heard Ruby crying.  Apparently, her little sister was finding more eggs than she was.  Emmie finds another egg and runs toward her sister to share it with her.  The only thing my baby nieces loves more than antagonizing her big sister is doing something to help her big sister.  A few minutes later, Ruby let out a heartfelt "OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHH!  Look what I found - a golden egg!!!!"  She's holding a gold-colored plastic egg with the reverence that I would reserve for an antique book or a handful of loose emeralds.  That golden egg was a left-over from two years ago that just happened to be on the porch with the new eggs that her mommy and daddy hid, but Ruby was convinced that her golden egg was a special find, a prize to be treasured.  It suddenly didn't matter that she had less eggs than her sister or that none of the found eggs had candy in them - she had the Golden Egg and all was right with her world.  Finally, the coming darkness and the quickening wind convinced us all to head back inside my tiny house.  Our Easter weekend had come to an end - over far too quickly for all of us.

 

On Monday morning, as my sister and her family were leaving, Ruby smiled impishly at me and pulled an object out of the pocket of her purple jacket.  "Look what I have in my pocket, Aunt Daffy - a golden egg!"  Look, what I have in my heart, Ruby - a golden memory of a weekend full of family, laughter, and love.