Saturday, April 7, 2012

Twas the night before Easter

...and all through the house, a Slacker Mom's slacking, and starting to grouse.

Fortunately I decided to buy the kids' Easter stuff last Friday (payday, ahoy!) because on Tuesday I woke up with the plague again. Cue another beautiful week with my kids bouncing off the walls of what started to feel like a far too small ranch home while I huddled on the couch wearing three sweaters and with the heat jacked up, popping Tylenol like it was candy. (If I need a liver transplant after all this, do I have any volunteers?) I'm finally functional again today, so I was able to go out and get the holiday grocery shopping done, but I am feeling way behind on the whole "making the holiday special for my family" thing.

Oh yeah, and the house looks like a bomb went off in it, but Tim is helping take care of that.

Mary caught me walking in with the bag from Target, which included two huge bubble wands sticking out of the top ($1.99, and they love them, can't beat that).

"What's that blue and that pink thing?" she asked.

"They're for poor kids," I said.

"What?"

"For Easter. For...poor...kids," I said, already regretting the decision to lie to a kid who is probably smarter than I am.

"Oh," she said, looking completely confused.

So later that evening I came clean about the Easter Bunny, because really? While I can play into Santa, the bunny thing is a little too far-reaching even for my tastes. Frankly, I had no idea she even knew what the Easter Bunny was, but sure enough, she had a vague idea about a rabbit and some candy.

"It's a fun game," I said. "We give candy - Mommy and Daddy buy it for you and Anna and Lily gets a little toy - and it's a fun way to help celebrate Easter. And now you know and you can play the game, too. But you can't tell the other kids at school."

"Okay," she said very seriously.

"Besides, for us, that's not what Easter is all about. You know what Easter is all about."

"I don't," she said. Okay, Protestant Mommy Fail. I swear we've talked about this before. Last year she told her Sunday School teacher all about Palm Sunday and she wasn't even four then. But somehow, I realized, she had no idea what we were celebrating, and thought tomorrow was just about a nice dress and candy and a bubble wand (although maybe she still thinks those are for the "poor kids").

"Is it all about Big Jesus?" she asked, and I cracked up.

"Yes, it's about grown up Jesus," I said. "He was very kind, and loved everyone, and helped people. He made people who were sick better, and he loved children, and he told people all about his father, God. And a lot of people loved him, but some people were angry and scared about what he said. And they arrested Jesus." I paused, not wanting to get too graphic, but wanting to get the general idea across. "And they killed him, but he didn't stay dead. He came back!"

"Oh," Mary said, as if I were a very simple person. "That sounds a lot like the Last Supper."

Uh huh.

"That's right, you're very smart," I said. "And the reason we all get to go to Heaven one day is because Jesus died and came back to life."

"When Jacket died, it was because he got hit by a car," Mary said. (Jack, aka Jacket, is the cat who died well before Mary turned three. Mary freaks me out sometimes.) "But when Jesus died he died different."

"Well, yes, he died on a cross. But that's not why we celebrate Easter. We celebrate because that wasn't the end of the story. He came back to life!"

I thought maybe I had gone too far with her but Mary got a big smile on her face.

A little later she asked if she could have jelly beans for breakfast.

I'd worry it didn't sink in, but next year she'll probably be trying to explain transubstantiation to me.

The Last Supper indeed.

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