It was a perfect plan. Our church’s Easter egg hunt was going to run from 1-4 pm. We put Levi down for a short nap @ 12:30 and Jen took Sam to the grocery store to buy supplies for our Easter dinner. When Jen and Sam returned home before 3, I grabbed the pre-packed diaper bag and we were off. With a half-hour drive across town, we planned to arrive at the “EGGstravaganza” (as Sam loves to call it) before the hundreds of screaming children were released before a field of plastic eggs. There was only one thing we didn’t think about–the weather.
The Saturday before Easter in DC was unseasonably cold. One word describes it best: SNOW! That’s right, we woke up on Saturday morning with snow covering the freshly budding trees in our backyard (it’s a national park, but I like to think of it as our backyard). Needless to say, no one was waiting around for stragglers @ the EGGstravaganza.
There was a tinge of worry in my mind as we hit every red light on Massachusetts Ave. I thought we may miss the start and Sam would be left picking up the scraps. When we finally made it to Lincoln Park, the reality was far worse. At 3:30 pm there was nothing left. The signs were down. The games were put away. I couldn’t even find kids with sticky fingers from eating cotton candy. We arrived just in time to watch our wonderful church volunteers pack the last crates into the Uhaul.
We were devasted. Sam, on the other hand, barely noticed. When I told him they were closing up he shouted, “Let’s get outta here!” (I’m not really sure what that means, but it’s funny). He was thoroughly entertained by the playground and, thanks to the generousity of our church friends, I was able to give him a few of the left-over disposeable toys. After a stop @ the Olive Garden for dinner and Toys R Us to buy Levi’s birthday present, the EGGstravaganza debacle was forgotten.
The moral of the story? God’s grace and a trip to the toy store covers over a multitude of parenting misfortunes.
