Breaking the Curse

I get incredibly attached to The Way Things Should Be. When you're a parent, this is such a bad idea, and yet I keep expecting life to follow the precious parenting moments playbook. I'm particularly suspectible to this on holidays, when in some crazy corner of my brain I have the idyllic home movies all blocked out, lines written, wardrobe chosen. At Halloween, I got a belligerant lamb instead of a charming little trick or treater. We spent 10 hours in the car on Christmas Day, and Muffin peed right through the holiday outfit I'd chosen so carefully. You'd think that by Easter I'd learn, right?

We didn't get off to an auspicious start. On Saturday we headed over to DUMBO for the Easter egg hunt held at the park under the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges. It was ridiculously cold for April, especially right on the water, and the event was poorly run. Big kids were mixed with toddlers, so as Muffin zeroed in on an egg, inevitably some older kid, his basket already overflowing, would swoop in and steal it. Muffin behaved herself through it all and answered yes when I asked if she'd had fun, but I doubted we were really making memories here.

On Sunday morning, we let her go through her Easter basket in bed. She ate a chocolate bunny for breakfast, and perhaps not coincidentally, we had to give her her very first time out a few hours later.

And then, somehow, it all turned around. We went over to our friends J & J's apartment, where they were having an Easter buffet dinner. Although J & J rival Martha Stewart in their hospitality and cooking prowess, they always go out of their way to include Muffin (and all the nuttiness she brings) in every invitation. She was the only child there, and yet they had stayed up late the night before decorating Easter eggs and hiding them around the apartment for her to find. They also put together a beautiful Easter basket for her, full of thoughtful items. Seeing how special they made it for her -- and therefore for the Canuck and I -- choked me up a little. And isn't that the gushy stuff precious moments are made of?

To see photos from Easter, click here.