Easter and Eggs.

Easter was nice, a little bit traditional and a little bit not. Except for the part where Eva fell down backwards while singing loudly before it started, mass was lovely. Emily and Sarah sat as part of the children's choir and tried to sing but mostly rang little bells. They also danced and skipped down the aisles and around the altar with ribbons flowing to ‘Lord of the Dance’. It was wonderful. It was largely unrehearsed, uncomplicated and pure. It’s a tune I have heard many times [the perfect Easter song really, I don't know if it's a jig, but it reminds me of a Scottish or Irish jig] before but have never paused to consider the lyrics. I put it in the playlist at the bottom of my sidebar if you want to hear the version I am thinking of. Partial lyrics:

I danced in the morning when the world was begun,
And I danced in the moon and the stars and the sun,
And I came down from heaven and I danced on the earth,
At Bethlehem I had my birth.

Dance, then, wherever you may be;
I am the Lord of the Dance, said he.
And I’ll lead you all wherever you may be,
And I’ll lead you all in the dance, said he.

I danced on a Friday and the sky turned black;
It’s hard to dance with the devil on your back;
They buried my body and they thought I’d gone,
But I am the dance and I still go on.

They cut me down and I leapt up high,
I am the life that’ll never, never die;
I’ll live in you if you’ll live in me;
I am the Lord of the Dance, said he.

To see my girls ‘dancing’ with long ribbons flowing from their hands, *sigh*, gives me cause to hold my heart.

Anyway, that was the traditional part of the day I suppose. The not so traditional part was spending part of it at urgent care with Sarah. Last week she had a pretty bad flare on her hands with small open sores. Eczema kids are prone to staph infections on the hands and we think that’s what it was. It’s a lot better since the weekend, the antibiotics kicked in right away. She had a really bad week last week and Sunday morning when she woke up with a slight fever and one of her hands warm and swollen, it was enough for an appointment with the Doctor on Easter Sunday. It was scary. Her hands looked like they had been burned and I’m sure to her they felt like they were on fire. She went to school last week and we thought we were getting ahead of it, until Sunday morning.

It was after 2:00 in the afternoon when we left the pharmacy, we hadn’t eaten and Sarah insisted that we go to Red Lobster. We have only taken our kids there once or twice, they are fond of the place and very often request it, but it’s too far to go for lunch on a regular day. Though at first it seemed like a funny place to be in the middle of the afternoon on Easter Sunday. I would have opted for the closest drive-thru and fled back home where Tony and the kids were waiting for us with the rest of his family but I couldn’t say no to her that day. It was good decision. Sarah enjoyed her popcorn shrimp, applesauce, and cheddar biscuit so much. It was really nice to be there just with her alone.

Those kind of opportunities don’t come by too often. Usually they are all four fighting for my attention with wants and needs of every sort, and for the moment I was happy to concentrate on just hers.

So we made it back just in time for yet another egg-hunt with Tony’s family, ¡Feliz Pascua de Resurreción!, and that was that.

This week is spring break for my girls so we are all home together. Tony might take off Thursday and Friday and we think we may end up in San Francisco or Carmel. Emily, as with all fourth grade students in California, is studying missions and we are planning to visit one or two. We are so glad we visited the very first mission in San Diego last August, it gave us perspective.

Finally, in case you were wondering, we colored our eggs on Monday [after Easter, yes].