Long Tiring Day

This morning it began at 6 a.m. when CootieGirl beat the alarm clock by a scant thirty seconds. It ends now with me about to collapse in bed in exhaustion.

The Easter Egg Hunt that our church held in a local park today went really well. Denis went early to help set up while I got the kids ready. It took me a full 30 minutes to get us out of the house and the truck loaded up with the stuff we’d need. I finally got to the park around 9:30 a.m. and quickly found the booth where I would be working. I volunteered to help take pictures of the kids with the Easter Bunny. I strapped CootieBoy into the child backpack and at 10 a.m. I promptly went to work.

For all the pictures (we had three separate bunny photo stations) we had about 1500 Polaroid shots available – we used every last one of them. It was a lot of fun to take pictures of kids who had gotten their faces painted, or who had baskets filled with eggs after the hunt, or just LOVED the bunny and would whisper their address in his ear for the candy visit later tonight. Very cute.

At 11 a.m. I took CootieGirl over to the toddler section for the egg hunt. We had brought a small bucket for her to collect eggs, and once the hunt began she had a blast picking up the eggs and putting them in the bucket. Occasionally she’d hand one to another kid nearby, which was sweet of her to do. Once the bucket was full (about 15 eggs or so) I took her back over to the photo area so I could keep taking pictures of the other kids at the event.

The festivities started winding down just after 12 p.m. All the folks I talked to said they had a great time and hoped we’d do it again next year. I think that’s most definitely going to happen. Last year we had just over 1,000 people in attendance, and this year we had double that, which is awesome. It’s so great to provide such a fun day for the community with no ulterior motives whatsoever. Some folks signing up for the event were surprised that absolutely everything was free – including food and drinks and pictures and the moonbounce and the egg hunt itself.

Anyway, when things wound down, I could tell that CootieGirl was exhausted and in need of a nap. Fortunately my pal Obie had pretty much taken care of CootieBoy (who had pretty much slept through the whole thing), which was very helpful.

I arrived home at about 12:45 p.m. and promptly put CootieGirl down for a nap. She was asleep within five minutes, I think. CootieBoy also fell asleep for a while, which was nice because it meant I had some time to wind down.

However, about 3 p.m. I just mentally and physically hit a wall. I was really tired but couldn’t really nap. So I called Casey, the babysitter and said, “I’m not going to poker night but you can still come hang and do your laundry if you want.”

Denis caught a ride with Ace & Anthony and went to Poker Night at M&J’s, our friends in Brooklyn. Hopefully he’s winning us all da money right now as we speak (especially since Arizona lost to Illinois which means I can’t win the NCAA pool even if Kentucky wins). Casey showed up around 7 p.m. and we just hung out watching tv while she did her laundry. She left about 45 minutes ago.

And so now I’m going to bed. I have checked my emails, so I have nothing else to do. My eyelids are itchy and desperate to be closed for the night, so I will grant their wish.