Hitting the PAUSE button for Easter

It really occurred to me last night that I'm going to screw up Easter for me kids.

Scratch that.

HOCKEY is going to screw up Easter for my kids. Normally we're done weeks before Easter. Now I'm faced with packing up the crew and delivering the dog to it's Grandparents and THEN watch four games of hockey in a tournament before Easter Sunday.

There are no window clings up. There are no eggs dyed. There is nary a single piece of green plastic grass to indicate to the outside world that we celebrate Easter. It's like this weekend was WEEKS away and I am in denial big time.

And although the kids have yet to notice, I feel like I've let them down - dropped the ball as it were, as a parent. I'm the mom who DOES this crap. I DO the pumpkins at Halloween - not just one - but one for each member of the family. I have banners that scream "HAPPY BIRTHDAY" and I have hand painted ceramic Peter Rabbit with a wheelbarrow that I made B.C. (Before Children) that is really kick-ass. The kids love it. He's in a closet.

Can I tell you what I've spent my free time doing? Not really, but I can tell you, I haven't been sitting on my ass eating bon bons. One night bedtime was actually 12:50 A.M. because I was making muffins for snacks so we could be frugal during our big weekend in the city. THAT made for a fun day on the phones at work. There was the furious trip to a neighboring town to drop off The Big Guy's suit for dry cleaning before The Royal Wedding. That and the subsequent shopping took up the entire evening.

The only saving grace right now is that we will have an Easter celebration at my sister's house. But with the insanity of planning a Royal Wedding, putting finishing touches on her new home and recouperating from the stress of launching an environmental hair salon, I'm sure she's in worse shape than I'm in - and we expect her to COOK!

I now have to figure out how the Easter Bunny is going to arrive. Is he going to hit the house while we are away? (Imagine me filling plastic eggs with chocolate eggs and stashing them around the house in the 5 minutes I will have to "go to the bathroom" right before we leave as the kids sit in the truck) or do I say "Screw this" and set something up in our hotel room.

Right now - I'm at "Screw this".