356 : Change of Plans

Well I had spent the past week debating about how to approach Easter this year with my kiddos (see post # 352). I would not be with them on Easter morning, so I settled on doing the minimum.  This is not because I didn't always want to do everything for my kids, it was more because I wanted to be conscious of how much "celebrating" they did with each holiday.  I didn't want them to be spoiled with two of everything (any more than they would already be).  I promised myself no Easter baskets.  No candy.  Just a simple egg hunt in the apartment upon their return home.  And then the cutest thing happened.  My oldest asked me if the Easter bunny would be able to find him at daddy's?  He wanted to make sure the Easter bunny could locate him so he'd get his loot.  The innocence of his question made me smile and made my heart burst all at the same time.  I couldn't NOT do anything.  I had to do a little something.  So then I remembered a tradition my friend Megs had shared.  She told me about how every year her family got new swim suits in their Easter basket.  I needed to buy these for my boys anyway, so why not start now?  I was big on incorporating traditions into our family, because the divorce had felt so untraditional to me.  I know it is a common thing these days, but for me it still wasn't.  I did not grow up in a divorced family.  I didn't ever anticipate that my husband would walk out on me.  And because I was so sensitive to the fact that things had played out this way, I wanted to try extra hard to create traditions and memories for my children so that they wouldn't think of the divorce first when they thought of their family.  I knew I couldn't control this in total,  but ultimately that was still my hope.  So I got the boys new swim suits and rash guard tops.  Oh and what do you know- I had already purchased flip flops for both of them at the end of the summer last year.  So as it turned out, the Easter bunny would  be stopping by our place afterall.  I couldn't wait to share this all with them.