The day started out
lazily. We were in no particular hurry to drag ourselves out of bed. It's not like we had anywhere to go. It was just the five of us. The two boys were still snoring soundly. Daughter dear climbed out of her bunk at 8:00 and climbed in with us. He was still sleeping and I was reading. She decided to read too. She grabs the dictionary.
"Mommy, let's play the dictionary game! I'll say a definition and if you guess the word you win. If not then I win!"
Mom wants to read lazily, snuggly warm under the blankets and not have to think so early in the morning. She doesn't take my suggestion to find something else to read too kindly.
"Ooooo! Here's a new word! IGNORAMUS: an ignorant person....nope that's not the word I'm looking for..."
"Find something else to read honey, K? I'll play later"
"Ah here it is....to be disregarded; to have NO ATTENTION paid to a person.....know what THAT word is Mommy?" At least the child says what she's feeling. I GIVE UP!!! "That word is *ignored* Mommy, just so you know." She grins.
Dad gets up and decides to make a hot breakfast. A TREAT! Banana pancakes! Two of us have the standard boring syrup. Three of us have Lemon and Sugar. Tart, yet sweet. Yummy! We actually all sit down together to eat at the table, also a rare thing. Meal times have become hit or miss, infrequently eaten together due to lack of space and conflicting work schedules.
"Who wants purple toenails?"
I spied the bottle that I had thought I'd lost long ago in the drawer. Three of us are now sporting purple toes. Two of us are not. One of us is instead still wearing the anklet of knotted colored embroidery thread that another of us made at the start of our move last fall.
"Mom, can you cut my hair again? It's too long"
The hair is ONE inch in length and is *too long*. The morning sun was shining through the trees as he sat on an upside down milkcrate. He's got a little red in his hair! I noticed the glint in the sun. I plug the buzz maker into the outside camper plug and give him a #5 on top and a #2 along the back. "Me too, Mom!" "NO! Don't let him copy me Mom, he always copies me!" (Actually, he copies Nick Carter right down to the Loreal Superblonde bottled blondeness, but I refrain from pointing that out.) Younger brother gets the all over #8 buzz. It's an inch long and *just right*! Hubby wants his side burns buzzed. I'm starting to feel like an assembly line and wondering when I get the tip. Daughter wants her bangs clipped. Scissors pop out and that gets fixed. I throw in some braids for good measure just because I feel like it. I snip the split ends off my own hair. Why should I be left out? Also throw in a few braids to hang loose over the long hair. One good point about outside hair cutting, there is no need to sweep the floor! (note, none of them had any bugs, this monkey is thorough in her grooming.)
Four of us go for a walk while ONE of us digs out the Easter goodies. Tradition IS tradition even if we are 3000 miles away from family. As the one gets the baskets equally divided, a horrid odor permeates the air. The campground system is below us. It has developed a problem. Mount ST. Sewage erupts from the manhole covers on our patio in front of our camper door. It was like a dirty drinking fountain bubbling up eight inches high with the MOST OFFENSIVE odor I have ever smelled. We have put up with *Old Faithful*, the sprinkler that constantly breaks and showers our camper in 10 feet of water at 2:00 in the morning and leaves our walk area a muddy mess. Mount St. Sewage is another matter entirely. But.... I ignore it.(See, I can learn new words) MORE IMPORTANT things to worry about. I only have 10 minutes left to assist the Easter Bunny in hiding the goodies. I do have priorities. Kids first, grossness second.
I come back to find the other four standing at the end of the driveway staring at our front patio. "MOM! It was spouting up two feet! DIRTY TOILET WATER!" The workers were there trying to fix it. "Honey, that's it, I told them to move us to a new site. I don't want to deal with these irritations any longer." Cool, I'm all for that. Kids want to find their baskets fast, afraid if we move first then other kids in the campground would find it. I'm wondering why no one else was out hiding stuff this morning?
Let the men deal with cleaning up the muck, Five of us run off with camera in tow out to the open wilderness behind the campground.
"Holy Cow! The Easter Bunny took a day off and the Easter MONKEY came through!"
One of us snickers. There are three trees spread far apart. Empty baskets are hung just out of reach. Goodies are hidden amongst the branches and the long grass surrounding the base. They are lucky I had sandals on and couldn't get a good grip to climb higher! Actually it's probably a good thing, I don't want them to become frustrated because I expect too much out of them. They love the challenge. One by one, three of the monkeys hunt for their treats. Hey, I need to get that energy out of them before the sugar rush sets in!
Moving time! We pack our things in less than an hour. Chuck out the things that were on the ground stewed in...well, you know. Hook up our home and move to a new site. Moving is easy when you have few possessions. The phone lines were moved an hour after that. We have GRASS!!! We have a new BIGGER PATIO!! We have NO NEIGHBORS two feet behind us! It's an end site! Wooooo-hooooo! Our neighbor to the front of us is twice as far from us as our previous neighbor. It feels like there is more air suddenly. I feel less crowded. There is no street lamp outside our window to shine it at night. AND we are further from the highway, it sounded strangely muffled. We set up our new home, five of us working together.
We colored eggs outside on the new picnic table. We couldn't get the purple to work right. It kept coming out a ugly brownish red. Methinks ONE of us slipped green into the red/blue bowl since ONE of us had a wicked grin on his face. Dinner was made by the youngest one of us. Hotdogs and salad. His specialty. We had our second meal together as a family in one day. VERY RARE indeed.
It was a different Easter Sunday for us. Quiet in comparison to others, not the usual pandemonium of an extended family gathering.
It was good nonetheless. One that none of us will forget, a good family bonding day.
The sun sets as ONE of us sorts through the mini bathroom cupboard.
"MOM! Where's the nail polish remover? The day is done and I have to go to school tomorrow!"