A Mommy Story

We had a quiet Easter this year. Instead of choosing to go out to eat, and dealing with the possibility of Cordy melting down in her Easter finest, it was decided to have a quiet meal at my grandmother’s house, where Cordy didn’t have to dress up, and she could run around the house all she wanted before and after the meal.

The meal was excellent, and soon afterwards Aunt Dot began handing out her goodie bags to everyone. Well, not quite everyone – this year she forgot about Aaron, but made it up to him by giving him a half-empty tray of chocolate bunnies, and then some Peeps she found in the bottom of her bag. Aaron traded one of the chocolate bunnies to another family member for a Reese’s Peanut Butter Egg, so he was content.

For those who are new and don’t know about Aunt Dot, you can read more here and here.

I didn’t come out too bad this year: I got my standard bag of cashews. She always gets me large containers of cashews, and usually chewy, old cashews, too. Why in the world she thinks I like cashews this much I’ll never know. I mean, sure, I like nuts as much as the next person, but a pound of cashews each holiday? Lay off the nuts. Luckily, that’s all I got, so I had less to dispose of.

Cordy’s bag contained a chocolate rose that she can’t eat (the thing is enormous and hard as a rock), a cute Little People person in an egg, and a bag of Goldfish crackers. Cordy’s eyes lit up when she saw the “fishies!”, but mine equally lit up when I saw the expiration date that proved these “fishies” were meant for the garbage bin and not her mouth. My mom distracted her with some pretzels, and all was well. I suppose I should have brought Aunt Dot’s birthday gift for Cordy with us, since it’s now the right time of year.

My mom once again won this year’s worst gift award. Last Easter she won for her expired box of cake mix. This year, however, was quite an unexpected gift. My mom has collected brown or brown and white cows for some time. She does not like black and white cows. Aunt Dot, of course, always gets her black and white cows, despite my mom telling her over and over that she only collects brown cows.

So this year, mom reaches into her bag and pulls out this: