Happiness in Imperfection

Easter didn’t turn out how I thought it would. It all started yesterday when I thought the Easter egg hunt at the Y was at 1 and Annabelle and I set off for the farmers market at 9:30am. We had a great morning and I planned on putting her down for a nap, going to the Y and then coming home and painting eggs. The Easter egg hunt was at 10, not at 1. And Annabelle didn’t nap. She finally broke down at 3:30 and slept in the car until 5 while Andrew and I drove around. Annabelle is always up from her naps by 3pm so as you can imagine she wasn’t tired at her usual bedtime. Did I mention she has 4 teeth coming in and hasn’t slept through the night in almost a week?

This morning began with my feelings of being a terrible mother. Nothing was prepped for an Easter brunch, eggs weren’t painted and we’d never make it on time for Church. I felt like a failure. While I was having a pity party Andrew suggested we go to the lake. We packed up some snacks, some plastic eggs and an Easter basket put on our bathing suits and off to the lake we went; even the dogs.

Once I let go of what I wanted Easter to look like and embraced what it actually was in the moment it was great. We played in the blue bonnets, Annabelle searched for eggs and watched the dogs chase sticks in the lake. We sat back, relaxed and enjoyed the moment.

It’s so easy for moms to get wrapped up in what we want a perfect day for our family to look like. I lost sight of what really mattered: having fun with the family. We didn’t wear frilly dresses or pose for staged pictures but if you know me and Andrew you know that’s not who we are nowadays, we’d much rather be wearing shorts and flip flops.

The rest of the day was as unplanned as the lake front Easter morning. Annabelle refused to nap and slept on my chest for about an hour. We had spinach cakes, sweet potato pancakes and fish for lunch. Andrew finished doing our taxes while Annabelle and I went for a walk. We spent the rest of the afternoon on the back porch painting with Annabelle’s Easter egg chalk and then had eggs and pancakes for dinner.

Not at all what I imagined for this Easter but perfect in it’s own way.