...and now it's Spring Break...

It's hard to believe Easter weekend is over. We were mega-busy- C & I sing in our church choir, so we had a big rehearsal for the Easter service on Saturday afternoon, which seemed to be almost directly followed by the Sunday morning service. We had arranged for B's favourite sitter to come during the rehearsal, but things did not work out as we'd planned & we had to drag B with us at the last minute (and I do mean drag...). He was in the middle of making a new bionicle & I literally picked up the bins of parts he was working with & brought them with us, plus my laptop so he could play games if he wanted. Even so, he was really upset about the change in plans- not surprisingly, since transitions are not his strong point. I felt rotten, really, especially when I discovered that he was still distraught after the 2 hours of practise... he felt so let-down by the absence of his sitter & it's really hard to explain that it really wasn't anybody's fault, just reality intersecting with what we wanted to happen. Sigh. I was exhausted from all the singing & standing, but it wasn't hard to be patient with him, since I felt his distess so keenly. C & I took turns just being with him on the way home in the car & for the rest of the evening. We let him play computer games ad lib before dinner & he finally calmed down. My biggest worry was that he'd refuse to go to church the next morning, remembering how miserable he'd been the day before, but happily, he snapped into Sunday mode, made even sweeter by his Easter basket :) He had requested eggs for breakfast Easter Sunday morning, although he doesn't actually like eggs... but C complied, & B tried some, decided he still didn't like them, so C & I shared his, too. Such a funny boy... He read & drew during choir practise before the service & during the first part of the service, as usual. There was a scary moment when all the kids went up to Sunday school- B likes to take an alternate route to the Sunday school wing- up the stairs to the choir loft & through the loft to his classroom, & most Sundays that's ok (we don't usually sing from the loft these days), but on Easter there was a brass trio, 2 timpani, & assorted other impediments in the way of B's egress... I waited in my pew for the crashing sounds, but nothing happened. I checked later with the trumpeter & he said that B skipped right over them without a problem (except that they thought the rest of the kids would be on his heels :). Knowing that B was happy & safely in Sunday school made it much easier to concentrate on the demanding Easter music... & it all went very well, I'm glad to say.

After church B, C & I scooted home (along with our friend Cody, who is in his senior year at the music conservatory in town, C's fellow bass in the choir, one of my co-Sunday school teachers, & a great euphonium player, & who has been joining us for Easter dinner for the last few years) to eat lunch & prepare Easter dinner for 9. To me, a holiday just doesn't feel like a holiday unless we share it with friends, so C very sweetly tolerates my need to invite a bunch of people over... although he does try to keep me from inviting more than 10 people. We were very glad to have Cody's help, since it took a bit longer than we remembered to prepare spanakopita, plus stuffed articholes, & focaccia bread for 8 (adults). We had decided to have Belgian lambic beers, in different flavours, instead of wine this year & they were a big hit. Yum... Along with Cody, Kimberly our music director from church, was there, plus our friends Nancy & Donna (sisters), my mom, & our Japanese teacher Tomoko. It was a nifty group & we laughed a lot together (that seems to be my standard for a "good time had by all"). B was happy to lego or play computer games most of the time, so didn't interact too much with everybody, but he was really appropriate when he did interact- speaking to each person in a personal manner, commenting on things he's shared with each person- so I felt that he was comfortable. He decided that we should have a fireworks display at the end of the day & picked out some of the incendiary birthday presents given to him by Paula & her son, C. Although we didn't get to them until everybody but grammie had left, we still had a good time lighting some of the flower spinners & sparklers.

Today has been a recovery (& laundry) day, for me at least. Easter was a lot of work, but it was worth it. B & I went out for Japanese lunch then watched the second volume of the Fruits Basket dvds (in Japanese, with me reading most of the subtitles to B, since he wasn't reading them fast enough to understand what was happening :). C has an office meeting this evening so B & I will have a quiet dinner & gear up for a busier day tomorrow. B's got a doctor's appointment then a birthday party in the afternoon, & I'm hoping to use the party time to get ready for a knitting workshop I'm doing for the local knitting guild this Saturday. Wednesday is even busier, & then we get to spend the afternoon on Thursday with Tomoko, doing some more Japanese cooking & watching "Howl's Moving Castle" with her (in Japanese, of course). C is off on Friday, so we'll have some family fun & maybe even go out with friends in the evening... & that's our spring break week. Hopefully I'll have some time to blog before the weekend, but if not- you'll know what we're up to :) Ah- I forgot to mention that the forums I moderate in (New Clues to Harry Potter Book 6- see the links list) returned from a 4-month hiatus over the weekend, so I'm getting back in the swing of things over there again, too. If you happen to check them out, package #5 of the April Fools forums were dedicated to B, aka The Crookshanks, so check them out! :) (I'll tell that story soon, promise!)