By Angela Garwood
It’s been two weeks since the children went back to school/nursery and we are still eating up Easter chocolate.
Every cupboard I open seems to reveal yet another half-eaten egg. I’ve never been so fed up with the stuff.
And this is coming from someone who eats chocolate daily.
A person who comes from a long line of daily-chocolate-eaters.
Officially bored of even the best of the best (Cadbury) I’ve resorted to getting my sugar-fix elsewhere.
The holidays were a perfect mix of fun and lazy days. I can say this now, with the gift of hindsight, but by the second week I was starting to worry we hadn’t done enough “exciting things” with Maia.
“Everyone seems to be on holiday or at some National Trust house,” I lament to Joel.
“Are you joking? She’s having the best time,” he assures me.
I thought back to what we’d done so far:
There was the afternoon at California Country Park when the sun shone but I had to be embarrassingly assertive with a group of queue-jumping children.
It was for the zip-wire and Maia had been waiting her turn for several minutes.
“Er…has everyone had a go??”
She told me off, smiling.
The following day she went shopping with Grandma which is always the best because when you can’t decide between two things, she simply buys you both. (The reason I had two prom dresses.) This does not help your decision making skills but let’s face it everyone is happy.
I took her to the cinema one morning to see The Super Mario Bros Movie which I enjoyed more than I’d anticipated. She had various playdates and an introduction to Nerf guns (I enjoyed this not at all). There was the inevitable Dinton visit and dinner at Wagamama.
Many hours were whiled away at Grandma and Grandad’s making up dances and den-building. The latter is Maia’s new favourite pastime.
Joel helped her construct one in our living room. It was splendid; dark and cosy, as dens should be. We all lay squished up together inside it and I was transported right back to my own childhood of furniture-moving and blanket-arranging.
The three of them spent half the day in the torch-lit den watching films and eating chocolate, I think Joel relished this as much as the children.
They had a gorgeously wholesome Good Friday at a friend’s house; cupcake decorating and playing dress up with other little ones. Disney music played in the background which made me quite audibly joyful.
Easter Sunday and Monday were spent at our respective families, taking turns to hold babies and checking the locations of various toddlers. (Joel’s parents have grandchildren born every year since 2019, including one set of twins, so holidays are always crazy in the best of ways.)
The Easter bunny pulled out all the stops this year and wrote a separate personalised hand-written hunt for each of the children; Leo was surprisingly good at solving the clues. I’d forgotten how carried away the bunny’s assistant had gotten in Waitrose, panic-buying more chocolate than a family could eat in a month.
The children racked up a total of three egg hunts this Easter, which I think is good going.
The holidays ended with the arrival of Maia’s new baby brother (her dad’s partner, not me, I’d have mentioned this sooner). When asked if she’s excited about meeting her newest sibling: “Yes but..another little brother?”
Angela blogs at The Colourful Kind
