Risen: the Lord, her sugar levels, my blood pressure. Typical Easter.

Why do we celebrate Easter with candy??? Why do we celebrate anything with anything containing sugar? It's as though we're hellbent on ruining all celebrations by willingly feeding children crack. Since having Josephine, I have completely revised my opinion on the substance. I think it should be strictly forbidden until the age at which you gain some semblance of control over your feelings, moods, attitudes.

By the way, when does that happen? Maybe once I'm 40?

Truly. I admit, I don't even think I should be trusted with the stuff. Much LESS my THREE YEAR OLD. I feel like the cruelest parent EVER because I am always intervening with well-meant sugar gifts directed at my child. And I even tell Josephine outright, "No, I don't want to give you that snack because when you have sugar you don't act the same. You aren't as nice." I'm very matter-of-fact about it, not incriminating or guilt-tripping, because I don't think it's her fault. It's simply a mind altering drug-- no two ways about it-- so I explain it that way, in the same tone I use when I say, "I know you are having allergies but I can't give you medicine all the time. You can't go through the next two months drugged on Benedryl. Let's just eat less yogurt and cheese."

Yet there seems to be this culture of good parenting that implies that you should BOTH willingly overhaul your family's diet to avoid allergies AND have the wherewithal to cope with a small child under the influence of sugar. I'm a bad mom if she sniffles and I don't immediately cut out wheat, dairy, eggs, name-a-potential-culprit... and I'm a mean mom if I don't let my kid have fruit juice and treats and candy and all the natural highs a little life is entitled to!

Really??? I should bend over backwards in BOTH directions?? Because let me choose between Josephine on allergies-- a snot-caked, poorly sleeping, occasionally eczema-prone mess... and Josephine on sugar-- a disobedient, live-wire, temper-tantrum-prone train wreck... and yeah, I'll pick the allergy-ridden kid ANY day.

Why on Earth is the general expectation that I would intervene in allergies while supporting sugar consumption??

anyway. end rant.

Wait. One more rant. Single-parenting = rotten eggs.

I've been through nothing compared to some of my friends, but enough to multiply it exponentially and come to the solid conclusion of It Is Insanely Hard. On Easter morning, during the minutes we needed to be leaving for church, I was reduced to the desperate, psycho mom who wanted a picture of her kid, couldn't get any cooperation, and was a hair away from fashioning a toddler-sized noose on Easter morning. (Thank you, Jesus, for dying for these sins.) Granted, I wouldn't have been any less desperate, rushed or psycho with Sean around... I'd have just somehow felt less self-conscious about it. That'd have been nice.

Note the face clawing. Precisely how all involved parties felt.

Eventually settled on snapping ONE forced cheese smile before shooing her off to the car and canning my perfectionist tendencies. It had been made clear that a halfway decent smile was the best I was going to get that morning.

After church, we drove to San Antonio to see Sean's Grandma Holloway, who has been deemed "Granny" in an effort to distinguish between all Josephine's matriarchs. I took some eggs to hide and managed to capture a couple more shots of the Easter belle as she tromped around the backyard.
Every time she found an egg, she shook it and said "What's IN it???" I would then say, in what became a rather robotic melody, "Once we're insiiiide you can open it and seeeeee."
She would proceed to plop it in her basket and automatically plead, "I don't see any more eggs. You help me find the eggs???" before she even tried to look past the air molecule on her nose.
I would say, "Well, you have to LOOK. They are hiding." -- again, rather robotically, seeing as how there were 18 eggs and we had this exchange with every. single. one.

I want to know: did it make the game more fun for her? I hope so.

But I won't post the sequence of photos 18 times.
Just twice.
...before moving on to counting found eggs before they hatched:
She wasn't far off. After much pleading and robotic coalescing, she found all 18-- and I'd only overlooked stuffing one of them. So 17 hatched. Good turn out.

"Oh, hello, Peep. I'm Josephine. You may call me 'Sugar-Deprived.' And can I just say-- I am SO pleased to make your acquaintance! Christ the Lord has risen INDEED."

We played a bit with the trinkets stuffed in the eggs, and then moved on to playing with some stickers Granny had collected for her and opening a few Easter presents.


"Mesmerize me, O Twirly Orb of Lit Amazingness. You with your little orange button that I instruct everyone to push and keep pushing and never stop pushing-- you are the most tremendous gift ever given to me! And with a Peep in my system I will obey your every command..."

I do love the bunny socks. In order that she will only hate me the normal amount when she's a teenager, I won't post the pictures of her dressed in those with her new bathing suit. But that was a pretty awesome get up.

Despite our grumpy start, the day ended well. We had a really good, relaxing time with Granny and she'd napped enough on the way down and back to afford us a fairly calm evening back home. I can honestly declare, though, that I'm relieved we've booked our flight back to NY; as a kid well-versed in taking on two parents working from home all day, she is too much for me alone! And until we get back under the influence of Sean, there will be ZERO sugar entering this kid whatsoever. Mommy cannot consume enough sugar of her own to combat it singlehandedly!

That doesn't sound like a perky enough ending to an Easter post.

Hmmm.

Weeeell, I guess I can refer back to the very title of this post: Christ is risen, indeed!

All this insanity has a purpose.

Even sugar.

(Just not in my kid).