Sunday, April 24, 2011

Being a mom preparing for holidays

This weekend has been super busy. My son's birthday and then Easter. Earth Day hardly gets a nod as it won't be allowed to trump Henry's birthday and we try every day to make it an Earth day, not just once a year. But, yesterday was a day to prepare for Easter.

The day started with making some Banana blueberry bread - 3 loaves. I took the lamb out of the freezer to thaw. Then starting the preferment for the regular daily bread to have fresh on Easter. I went to the mall with the little guy (it was raining yesterday) midday yesterday to run off some energy. I made dinner. I cooked the ham and boiled the eggs, but managed to break 16 of the 24 eggs - NEVER in 18 years of making eggs for Easter have I had more than one per dozen break. So weird! This then necessitated a back up plan for our egg hunt. I went out at 9 pm to buy plastic eggs. The little guy colored the surviving 8 eggs and the remaining half dozen that weren't severely broken. After running to the grocery store, I did my workout at 10 pm. After the workout I came upstairs and filled the Easter baskets.

I slept really well and LONG. (thank goodness I think my little guy forgot today was Easter and let us sleep in). I get up, hide the plastic eggs outside, we do the egg hunt, slice up the cold ham, do the European egg cracking tradition and everyone dives into the Easter basket. No Easter basket for me today. I clean up everything from the breakfast of eggs, ham, banana blueberry bread and regular whole wheat bread (homemade) and start looking up what I need to do with the lamb for dinner.

What does my husband and mother in law do during all this time? Most husband is doing laundry and my mother is being a pill about allergies and being stuck in the house and on Easter, every stinking year, she's a pain in the butt because she is lamenting her Easter's of yore. Now, 50% of what we do for Easter is her traditions (none of her traditions are left out) and 50% of the traditions we do are ours (none of my growing up traditions are left out). MOST years, the Easters are on different weeks, but this year they are the same. She is just a pain every holiday and really, I'm getting sick of it. She complains, but doesn't help to make it special for her either.

And why do I do some much for the holidays - every year. I cook and cook and prepare and think and do a lot. Moms everywhere are doing it and the kids love it, but why don't dads get into it as much? Yes sure they will play along and  do whatever, but so few actually actively, independently participate in it. They just expect it to magically appear. Like my husband this mornign was like, "Well, we can't have the egg cracking thing if we don't have colored eggs." He was unaware I had colored the eggs and he didn't check to be sure they were colored either - just expected it to be done, but would never bother to do it himself.

For Easter, we are more low key than Thanksgiving and Christmas, but still I put a lot of effort into it. Buying the basket stuff a month in advance to be sure to get what the kids like. Every holiday I'm usually exhausted from all the preparation and I have to wonder, "do they even appreciate it?" or is it really for me? Not for them?

I know I will miss it when the kids are grown. I know I couldn't wait to have kids to do all these things, so I'm not bemoaning the fact that I do them, but why is it the moms that really get into it? Dads that get into it are rare.

My reward for my busy day yesterday, even skipping out on a slice of birthday cake and exercising at 10 pm was that I gained a pound from yesterday's low! Nice, huh? But, I'm getting close to ovulation and the last two months I gained about this time too, so I'm not too surprised. Oh well, I'll just keep doing what I'm doing and it will come off sooner than later.

Stats for 4/24/11:

Beginning weight: 255.6  Now: 220.4 (a bit more than 35 lbs lost - up a pound from yesterday)
Exercise total hours/minutes in 2011: 107 hours
Running/Walking/Biking total miles in 2011: 345/1000

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