This morning I was the first one up, because I set an alarm. Since Easter mass is generally crowded, we usually get up early to go to 8am mass.
I stayed up too late last night, but managed to get 6-7 good hours of sleep, so it wasn’t too bad getting up. I kind of remember dreaming right before I woke up, which means I manged to hit a good place in my sleep cycle.
Even though I woke up in a good mood, it didn’t last once the kids were up. They were tired from yesterday and moving slower than molasses. I suppose I probably was tired too because I yelled and harassed them a lot more than I prefer.
Clothing Battles
Baby didn’t want to change her sleep shirt for her dress, even though she grudgingly permitted me to put her pants and new shoes on.
Younger son wanted to put his new shoes on, but didn’t want to put any of the rest of his Easter clothes on by himself. So I had to help dress him. Oh wait, he did want to button up his own shirt.
Somehow older daughter ended up with a dress that was a 10/12 instead of a 7/8 so it was extremely extra flowing, lol. I was certain I remembered checking the tags when we bought it, but obviously not. At least her leggings and sweater were the right size, so it didn’t look too obvious when she had the sweater on.
Older son refused to wear his new shoes and his button up shirt. So he ended up with his regular (orange and black) school shoes and a navy polo.
Easter Reminiscing
I suppose I yelled this morning because I was tired and it was early. But I suppose it really was more than that too. Last Easter we had no idea what the following week would hold for us.
Easter is earlier this year, so we still have a few more weeks until we reach our first anniversary of his death on 4/20. But Easter will always be a reminder.
I remember how seriously Kraston took his last Lent. He had a Lenten devotional, or maybe it was just a missal, that he picked up somewhere. I think it was something free from the vestibule at church. He read it religiously every night.
If you knew Kraston very well, you know he didn’t particularly like to read. He was borderline dyslexic and preferred to hear or watch things. Almost every evening for most of our marriage, we watched tv together before bed. Well, sort of together. Usually he was watching tv and I was doing something on the computer.
That last Lent though, he preferred to read his devotional to watching tv. After he died, I had quite a backlog of our shows to watch to finish out the season. It took me about a month to work up the desire to watch the shows we had watched together. I finished out the season for our handful of shows, because I’m just a touch compulsive like that.
Now though, I don’t watch any shows. I suppose just sitting and watching tv reminds me too much that he isn’t there. I spend very little time in our living room really.
I think about him whenever I see our sofas. For several years in a row we were so non creative about what to do after dinner for our anniversary that we went sofa shopping. We had quite the difficult time finding one that we both liked sitting on that when we finally found one, we bought two.
Morning
We were late to mass, so we got to spend our time in the vestibule. My dad did go with us. I miss sitting in the sanctuary, but even with my dad, it is just too hard most of the time when I have all 4 of them. I don’t know how much of it is just grief, but none of them behave anywhere remotely near where I know they do at school.
After mass we decided to pick up breakfast via drive-thru at McDonald’s and ate at my parents house. We also had cookies from Merrits while the kids helped my mom make pumpkin pies for dessert for lunch.
My sister, her husband and my sweet little nephew came by later in the morning. My mom started talking to my sister about my cousin’s upcoming graduation from Columbia University in New York. Somehow along the way, we started discussing that maybe I could go if my dad would watch the kids for a couple nights. He was generally agreeable to the idea, so I’m starting to look at flights.
I have never been to New York, so I’m kind of excited about the idea.
After my brother and his wife arrived with the remainder of our meal items, we all shared a nice lunch. Except for my lame kids who don’t like to eat holiday meal food. They ended up with grilled cheese sandwiches and pie.
Afternoon
The baby got cranky, so my mom went and laid her down in her room for a nap. I hung out with my mom for a little while longer. I then took my grandparents each a plate of leftovers and showed them pics of the kids dressed up in their Easter clothes.
After that I went to the gym for my dance class. I did run into my trainer on the way in and got a nice hug from her. I realized that I didn’t see very many people I new at church this morning, so I didn’t get a lot of my usual weekly hugs in from my church friends, so that was nice running into her.
I am seeing her tomorrow for a one-on-one session and she asked me about what I wanted to do. I wasn’t sure at first, but I remembered a boxing session she had done one time that I had enjoyed, so I mentioned that. I had a good time at a BodyCombat class last Thursday which has a lot of boxing in it, so I think that will be fun if that is what we end up doing.
After the gym, I collected my kids and we headed home. We usually visit my grandparents on Sunday evening, but I decided we needed to get home early since we have school tomorrow after our 2 week spring break.
Evening
The kids talked me into a movie night since we didn’t have our usual pizza and a movie on Friday due to travel / Good Friday. We all had kind of a small dinner and the big kids started their movie. So I got the baby settled down and in her pack in play by 6:30. I had time to start some laundry and then get the big kids Quiet time routine started on time at 7.
Older son was asleep before 8. Younger son gave it up around 8 and older daughter was not far behind around 8:30. So hopefully that gives them all the best possible chance at enough rest for tomorrow.
My trainer messaged me and a few others about one of the upcoming programs at the gym that starts April 16. It is 5 weeks of workouts 3x per week with the trainer/group. It is a weight loss oriented program which I’m not super excited to have as a focus, but it is a cheaper way to get face time with favorite trainer than buying more one-on-one session right now.
I will have to start logging my food. She wanted me to start doing that again last week but I’ve been putting it off. I’m still super nervous about logging again since I didn’t like the way I was feeling doing it the last few weeks I was logging. So I’m going to give myself another week’s break since I have my retreat next week. The retreat will help clear my head a bit and I can hopefully start logging food in a more neutral mindset.
Final Note
Since I will be leaving for my retreat on Wednesday, I expect I will not be publishing any new posts Wednesday through Sunday this upcoming week. So I will try to get another post or two in before taking my retreat break and resuming on Monday, the 9th.