My Friends Are Brilliant

Like most of you, I tend to commit myself to a lot.  There is so much that I love to do and so many opportunities out that that it's hard to say no.  I've gotten better at it, and when a friend of mine approached me a few weeks ago to ask if I was interested in joining her new club she was forming, my instant reaction was, "No, I've got enough on my plate."

Then she explained it further.  And I was so in.

The woman is brilliant.  Four of us get together once a week at a house, rotating through the four of us, and we work.  We fix and we ... complain for two and a half hours.

You know those projects that you don't do because ohhhh they are overwhelming or you don't know where you start or you just don't know enough to do it right?  That's where we come in.  Four people working for two and a half hours can get so much more done that you'd imagine.

The first week, we reorganized a friend's office.  We got rid of a ton of books on the shelves that shouldn't be there.  We went through the photos to decide what stays and goes.  We cleaned all the shelves.  We took charge of the tangle of cords and got them organized and put away.  By the time we left, it looked really put together.

This morning, we were at the second house.  While my friend who has an art history master's degree - among other artist credentials - went with her upstairs to help choose paint colors and decor, my other friend and I got to work in the kitchen.  We recovered four of her kitchen chairs and cleaned the wood on them.  Neither of us had ever done anything like that before, but with directions we did it.  It went so much faster having help because removing the cushions and putting them back on is just not a one person job.

And we also figured out how to remove some mold from the edges of the windows of my friends too well sealed house.  Australian tea tree oil - which I love for all sorts of magical properties - apparently has another use, as well.  It kills mold naturally.  You know I'm going out to buy another bottle of this.

By the time we left, my friend was thrilled that she knew what she was doing with a decor - and in realizing, thanks to my artsy friend, that she had a theme in her house already - and that she had gorgeous new kitchen chairs that "had never been so clean ever and that her windows were now mold free.  And we left feeling pretty good about ourselves, too.  We got a lot done, and we're all ready to tackle the day after this.

Next week is my house.  We're going after the jungle that was once a garden in my backyard.  If the weather doesn't cooperate, we're organizing my bathroom cabinets.  Next up is going through my closet to get rid of items that don't belong there.  My basement is up next, particularly the room that used to contain the gift closet and now is just overrun.

I.  Can't.  Wait.

This was the best idea ever, and I'm thrilled to be part of this club.  Because my friends are brilliant - even though I was the only one who knew what the word "slake" meant.

How Many Times Can We Celebrate Easter?

My neighborhood has a babysitting co-op, which is wonderful for so many reasons. It's given me great built-in friends with kids about the wee ones' ages. Whenever I need a sitter, no matter whether day or night, I have someone I trust -- for free! The moms have advised me on schooling decisions and helped me through my angst. And every year, they do an Easter Egg hunt.

Last year it was at my house, but after 45 children (no joke) in my house searching for eggs, eating pizza, and decorating cookies, I quietly didn't volunteer this year. Some other sucker -- I mean MOM -- graciously did.

Today was the big day, and the wee ones were excited. I, of course, got stuck at work and so didn't get home until five minutes after the event had started, so we were a bit late, but it was fine. They had a great time hunting for their dozen "hidden" eggs.

Little Miss did get a little upset once when someone beat her to the egg. She kept exclaiming, "But that was my egg! I saw it first!" Next year, I think she'll learn to move faster.



Once everyone had the requisite dozen eggs, we moved on to the cookie decorating. Yes, even Little Miss can decorate the cookies, as I brought special non-dairy cookies for her and some non-dairy icing that three other kids also needed to use. Yep, food issues are definitely becoming more common with almost one in ten kids in this group.

Little Miss did all her decorating all by herself.



She also did all her eating all by herself. In fact, she refused to decorate her second cookie until she'd finished eating her first. And she's a slow, deliberate eater....



Mister Man decorated his cookies, too. His focus was simply on getting enough frosting on the cookie so that he could get as many sprinkles and other decorations on it as possible! Typical Mister Man, he ate about half his first cookie and then asked to save the rest for later. Sometimes I wonder if he's really my kid!



At this Easter Egg hunt, the Easter Bunny always comes, too. The wee ones were sooooo excited when they saw him. They ran up to give hugs, and then I spent the next five minutes trying to get a single normal looking picture of them with the Easter Bunny. I never really succeeded.







At least the Easter Bunny knows how to pose!

And after today? On Friday we head to the local "mall" where the Easter Bunny is hanging out. Saturday is decorating eggs, with the Easter vigil at church providing everything from the blessing of the Easter baskets to more egg decorating. And on Sunday? It's the culmination of our celebration where we get to see what the bunny brought us.

I will admit that I heard that this year he's bringing Spiderman placemats and cups and activity books and other such things instead of the traditional candy. It's an interesting concept, don't you think?

Easter Party Recap

For all of you who have been waiting to hear how the Easter egg hunt went – with bated breath, I assume – I finally have the update. My apologies for the delay. We went to spend Easter with the in-laws (lots ‘o stories to come yet on this trip, trust me), and I didn’t have access to a computer from Thursday until tonight.

So without further ado:

Yep, I really had 36 kids in my house. At one time. With their moms. Voluntarily. With the idea that they were going to hunt eggs. And silly me, I decided to add more to the festivities because hunting eggs would be done so quickly.

Apparently, my logical mind failed me when I set this up. Every year, my babysitting co-op does an Easter egg hunt. Last year was the first year I was in the co-op, so it’s my only comparison. It was supposed to be at one of the social chair’s houses, but it snowed last Easter. She didn’t want to do it inside (wimp!) so called the park district in a panic and they let us use their gym.

When I went, there were 20 kids or so, and it didn’t seem that bad. They all brought their own baskets, they hunted for eggs their parents had dropped off with no squabbles over some kids getting too many eggs and others not getting any. We then had the Easter Bunny come, and kids got their pictures taken and got a basket of cr@p from him, and they went home after around an hour.

The only issue was that this cost $12 per kid, and this year it was going to be at least $13 or $14. I only have two kids, and I objected to that. Since I’m one of the social chairs this year, I get a little sway. We decided to skip the bunny and just do it at my house. And since we weren’t getting the basket from the bunny, I decided to have the kids decorate cookies (hey, if I did it for Mister Man’s third birthday party, I can certainly do it for older kids!) and we’d order pizza since the hunt wasn’t going to start until 4:30.

Brilliant! Lots of fun! And I could put it on for only $3 (anyone else love the $5.99 huge pizzas from Dominick’s?).

What I didn’t count on was everyone else thinking it was brilliant. And cheap. Needless to say, 36 kids signed up. Literally, three families didn’t participate, all because of other conflicts. Whoops.

And of course, someone found the bunny costume for $75 that the co-op decided to buy for use every year (cheaper than the $95 one company wanted for a rental of a near-identical costume). Dear hubby agreed to wear it and be the bunny for us, so everything was going to be perfect! No, I didn’t say that with a straight face.

Since I was still feeling a little off from the flu earlier in the week and hadn’t yet baked the cookies, I decided to take Wednesday off work. Good idea, me! That meant I was able to get the house straightened up, make all the cookies, restraighten the house, and call the moms who had yet to drop off their eggs to remind them that I needed the eggs the previous Saturday – although I was far nicer in my reminders.

Somehow, I still ended up hiding the eggs as people were arriving, but since no one can be on time, it worked out fine. Some of the moms helped me, while I did two areas – one upstairs for the truly little kids and downstairs for the kids 4 and up. Gotta love the moms who help.

When I realized I needed a stronger voice than mine to get the instructions across to such a large mass of people, two moms volunteered. One gave instructions, and the other was the gatekeeper to the basement so I didn’t have any lawsuits from kids falling down the stairs and being stampeded by the mass behind them. As expected the egg hunt lasted all of 2.4 seconds. I’m amazed by how quickly kids can pick up eggs hidden everywhere but yet pick up toys at the speed of molasses that are in plain sight on the floor. Kid magic, I suppose.

The bunny arrived right on time, and the wee ones flew to the bunny to give him hugs. Seeing the bunny in person, I realized the costume was a bit creepy looking, but my kids loved him at least. Most of the others did, too, and there was quite the conga line to sit on the bunny’s lap. A few kids had the good sense to not want to go near the creepy bunny, and they stayed away. Mister Man, on the other hand, kept getting candy from his now filled bucket and trying to share it with the Easter Bunny who had no pockets. Too cute, but he was so disappointed when he found the Easter Bunny had dropped some on the his way out.

After the bunny came the cookie decorating. I somehow managed to make enough eggs and bunnies for each kid to decorate 3, plus extras for breakage and other issues. I’m still not sure how that happened, since I started off with the goal of one. Fortunately, everyone enjoyed making them and several enjoyed eating them, too. Mister Man didn’t want to make his around everyone else for whatever reason though, and his was decorated after everyone left and he realized he’d missed out on something.

Then the wait for the pizzas started. I had ordered them to be ready at 5 and sent my dad to pick them up – Dominick’s is 3 minutes away – at 4:55. Cookies were all decorated, and the kids had started to tear into the toys and do the usual destruction of the house that occurs when children walk through the door. No pizza. I started to hear questions from the moms. No pizza. Finally, I called my dad to see what was up. Apparently Dominck’s had messed up and had to remake pizzas so he was waiting but would be home shortly.


Five minutes later, he arrived home with nine pizzas. I found out that the problem had been that Dominick’s had burned one pizza, which they gave us anyway. Trust me, I would never have guessed which one it was had I not known one was supposed to be burnt. If it had been me, I would have just left with the other pizzas and gone back later if we still needed the last one, but my dad is too good a guy.

You’d think that 9 pizzas, 36 kids and 14 adults would be a pretty good ratio. Suprisingly, it wasn’t. We had almost 4 pizzas leftover. I tried sending them home with anyone I could, and we gave one to a next door neighbor, but we still had over a whole pizza left at the end. Better too many than too few though!

And the best part – by 7:30, the house was back to normal. Even my husband said it wasn’t too bad to clean up. Little does he know I’ve already been volunteered to host this again next year…. Now, if I can just track down the last two parents who haven’t yet paid for the party….

Happy Easter!