I am the mom who bought our Easter-egg painting kit at the dollar store, thinking “It’s a PAAS kit, how crappy could it be?” only to get it home and find out this basic dollar-store kit didn’t even have a wax crayon inside. (Turns out regular crayons work, sort of, in a pinch.)
I am the mom who got no more creative than opening the cheap, dollar-store version of the PAAS egg coloring kit, mixing the colors and letting the kids go at it.
I am the mom whose kid is still wearing those same arm tattoos five days after the above photo was taken, because I haven’t bothered to scrub them off.
I am the mom blogger who didn’t get an Easter post up until four days after the holiday was over.
But when I look at photos of my kids involved in my not-so-creative, not-so-crafty, not-so-prompt, not-so-Pinterest-worthy versions of holiday activities…I see faces full of determination and creativity and excitement and focus and joy.
See, what I have to offer is all they need. The rest of it – the scrapbooks I haven’t filled, the eggs I never got around to blowing and wrapping with colored thread, the pastel tissue-paper crafts I meant to make but neglected to buy the supplies – that stuff is all the frosting.
Frosting is nice, but cake tastes pretty great without it, too.
It turns out my kids are having a pretty cake-y time of this childhood thing, even if our life doesn’t exactly look like a magazine spread. I am a pretty great mom, even if I don’t always feel like I have my stuff together.
And I’m guessing, so are you.
We did not dye eggs at all this year. I only got pictures on my phone after church, and none of them are of all six kids looking the same way at the same time. I got Easter treats at Target the day before, while my two oldest kids were with me.
I’m pretty sure they still had a good day. Thanks for writing this.
We didn’t even dye eggs at home, but my daughter dyed them at preschool and my son (first grade) didn’t ask.
The extent of our Easter this year was going to church and then brunch with close friends. Then an impromptu dinner with the same friends after said friend burned her family’s dinner… we brought ours over and shared.
No eggs. No candy. No baskets. No new outfits. Can I say that it was pretty great?
This post is exactly why I love your blog. I rarely leave a comment, but read or check your blog daily! Thank you for you wisdom, humor, and honesty.
Thank you so much, Renee!
I dyed eggs during Baguette’s nap. That clear wax crayon worked about as well for me as the regular crayons we used growing up-which is to say, not at all!
But you’re right. What your kids want is the stuff you give them. They’d like other stuff, too-but they’d like it for the same reason: because it’s from you. So find the balance that makes all of you happy, and aim for that. Your kids aren’t going to say, “Oh, this would have been the ideal Easter, if only there had been tissue-paper crafts.”
Seriously, I’m pretty sure that my brother will agree with me on this: our favorite Easters were the ones we spent in a hotel in Germany, hiding four eggs over and over for each other and our parents. We didn’t even color the eggs ourselves-we bought them in the hotel cafeteria. It was as bare-bones an event as you can imagine, and it was so much fun!
This post reminds me a lot of one I read earlier today, I think you will definitely relate!
http://powerofmoms.com/2012/04/your-children-want-you/
Thanks again for keeping it REAL!
Steph, what a great post! She and I were definitely sharing a brain this week
Thanks for sharing!
I love this post…it totally nails the way I feel about myself as a mom. Sometimes I have my act together, sometimes I don’t, and my kids don’t care. They just want me to listen to them, to look them in the eye, to just slow down and and be with them. It’s so good to be reminded that it can really be that simple, and that joyful!
This! Yes! Very nicely said, Val.
Wonderful post, Meaghan. The holidays that I remember fondly as a child weren’t about tissue paper crafts, they were about spending time as a family. That can be hard to remember sometimes.
Yes I am the same! I really wanted to do these cute Easter crafts for our family, but I didn’t end up getting anything done. The most I did was send my husband to Target to buy plastic eggs and stickers to fill them with as our contribution to his family’s easter egg hunt. But hey my little guy enjoyed.
Me, I actually enjoyed my Easter Holiday and I think maybe all of us have enjoyed it with the whole family too… Anyway, it seems you had a great time with your kids…
I am the mom who didn’t dye eggs because we don’t eat eggs. I am the mom who didn’t buy new Easter clothes because I don’t shop very often. I am the mom who didn’t take the kids to the Church Easter egg hunt because we had 10 other places to be that weekend.
However, they had a great time hiding candy filled eggs for each other in the yard. And my wondeful husband loaded up all 6 bikes so we could go bike riding together in the woods.
Ha, I don’t plan on posting my Easter post until tomorrow!
We had a great relaxed time over Easter. We didn’t do much worth posting about, but of the few special things we did do I didn’t take pictures (except the Easter egg hunt and some special chocolates my husband made). And I was glad. Just enjoying the moment with my family and keeping the memories for myself was better than interrupting it to take photos
Cut to four days later and I have finally gotten around to posting about Easter. Wow, I’m slow. See, compared to me you got your Easter post up nice and early
I think, as you can see by the many mothers here that can relate, that you have nothing to worry about. It looks like your kids had fun.
Well, exactly. Due to baby-brain all I had organised when my step-kids came over was a bunch of hastily-printed colouring pages and a few easter-themed stickers. They were pretty pleased with that so if they’re happy, I’m happy.
Our kids did easter eggs, but we had no paint, so they had to decorate them with markers, most of which were nearly dried out.
I am so loving all these “good enough” Easter stories! I thank you all for your honesty and your willingness to claim your awesomeness as moms
We didn’t do a single Easter activity this year, other than church and a measly Easter Egg hunt where I realized mid-hunt that I hadn’t hidden nearly enough eggs. Four kids- need a lot more eggs for it to be a proper fun hunt. But it was still great.
Steph
LOL – we had that same problem last year so this year I stocked up – 120 plastic eggs (cheapies from Target). Only put 2 or 3 M&Ms in each egg. We let the little ones (3.5 and almost 2) get a 10 minute head start and then let the big guys join in (6 and 7.5). We hid them all over the house.
As a baker, I didn’t even make any decorated Easter sugar cookies – just not enough time and too much going on this year.
Thanks, I needed this today!
Thanks for sharing. I needed this today!
You must be a really proud mom. How old is your sweetie? Good for her she was able to explore her baking abilities at a very young age.
-Kirk
So funny that we feel we have to make excuses for being THAT MOM! Perhaps it is a Pinterest phenom…we see all these amazing ideas and we feel we must DO them all, when really we only have time to LOOK at those ideas!
Yep – I’m one of “those” moms too! I don’t even visit pinterest because it would just make me feel depressed and inadequate unnecessarily. What I love about you and your blog is how you are so down to earth and relatable.
We have a few Easter traditions I do every year – many of them are things I enjoyed from my childhood. I bake a pound cake in a lamb shaped pan and ice it white and use jelly beans for the eyes and nose – very simple. My mom makes one every year and I loved it as a kid – so I want the same memory for them. We decorate eggs but it’s almost always a craft fail of some sort. I buy the cheapo Paas box too and have noticed it’s quality getting worse every year. The kids don’t seem to mind at all. We fill plastic eggs with a few M&Ms each and hide them around the house after they are in bed – then the kids hunt and find them when we all get up. We go to church, and I make a nice meal – easy – ham, some simple sides, rolls, etc. I think it’s important to have some traditions and celebrate that the holiday is more than just a standard day — but I keep those traditions low key, fun, and simple. It’s spending time together that matters the most.
I definitely love this and definitely feel at home and relate to “not-so-creative, not-so-crafty, not-so-prompt, not-so-Pinterest-worthy versions of holiday activities”… and other activities, too! I’ve always said my food may not be pretty, but I work hard to make it taste good… and be healthy, too. Our decor is the same, our holiday activities, our gardens, our organization. “Whatever works” and relationships are more important than “Pinterest pretty.”
Modern celebrations of Lent tend to involve giving up a food, hobby or vice for 40 days before Easter, rather than more traditional forms of fasting..
Simple things are what makes life worth living. Your kids did enjoy because you are with them. Imagine how many children are missing their parents on holidays because they work and work to give luxurious life? Anyway, being a parent is all this, and it gives anyone real happiness. Enjoy life!
Daisy
Simple things are what makes life worth living. Your kids did enjoy the activities because you are with them. Imagine how many children are missing their parents on holidays like this because they work and work to give luxurious life where in reality their presence is more important. Anyway, being a parent is all this, and it gives anyone real happiness. Enjoy life!
Daisy
We didn’t even dye eggs this year. My daughter just turned 3 and I figured I could get away with not doing it one more year. And we totally half-assed the easter egg hunt. She didn’t seem to mind, though. What she doesn’t know she can’t miss.
I had a very different Easter than normal for us. We were on vacation and would be driving from AL to MI on Easter weekend so the kids made pictures for the Easter Bunny earlier in the week asking if he’d come early to our vacation place. Well, that put me in a tight spot but managed to pull it off. However, we tried a new trick to make hard eggs by baking them (because I cannot boil an egg!). What a disaster. I don’t recommend this technique at all unless you like cracked eggs with brown spots and rubbery insides. Sigh. All and all it was fun and different. When the real Easter morning arrived we were home sweet home and we just hung out. No crafts, no nothing. I enjoyed it!
I didn’t even know the better egg dyeing kits came with a crayon! I always shop for Easter at the dollar store. They have chocolate crosses.
(And my Easter post STILL isn’t up!)
I got you beat. It took me a full SIX days to put up my blog post about my non-egg-dying-I-don’t-wanna-host-Easter-dinner.
We decided to put our time intensive egg-dying and dress-shopping energy into a neighborhood brunch after a couple of them joined us for church…way better memory and lesson of service for our kids than a pretty-posed picture-perfect pretend. Glad to know I wasn’t alone this Easter!
Hosting an Easter brunch is a fun and festive way to bring family and friends together to celebrate the holiday and the arrival of spring. Follow these steps to adorn your brunch table with some easy and inexpensive decorations.
This year my daughter was introduced to melting colored candle wax on eggs as a means of decorating them. Okay, go with that. She did it at a friend’s house, so she can keep doing it at our house. Whatever. The interesting thing: The decorated egg is still sitting in an egg carton, yet to be hung. It seems the important thing to my daughter is doing something. That’s it. Not a lot when you think about it.