Today was grocery day. Two little girls who couldn’t wait to get out of the house. Oh I piled the cart with too much food yet again. Everything looked so good.
When we came home I let Bella play and Sophie crawl about in the front yard (she doesn’t go fast enough to be in any danger of escaping) while I carried the groceries from the car and stacked them just inside the door. Neither wanted to go inside. When I let Bella go out back, Sophie screamed. Finally, I gave in and put her in the swing with a piece of cheese. Not ideal but I could see her from the open back door and I ran out every few minutes to give her a push and more cheese.
While I was unloading groceries our back neighbor passed, walking his dog and stopped to introduce himself. I have a feeling that with the warm weather we’ll be meeting many more of our neighbors. This seems like such a friendly, neighborly place.
On impulse I bought a leg of lamb at the grocery. We’re having Easter with Dom’s family, a sort of pot luck and Dom’s making meatballs. It will be good; but no lamb. Which is what I’d make if we were doing it here. I love lamb and it seems many Catholic moms out there have planned to do a roast lamb for Holy Thursday. It wasn’t in my plan; but it happened anyway. I rubbed it with olive oil and fresh ground pepper and rosemary. It smelled heavenly as I roasted it.
I opened the back door while the girls slept and sat out in the yard, caught between the smell of the lamb and the fresh spring breeze. The sun was playing peek-a-boo with the clouds: gloriously warm while it shone and a bit too chilly in the shadow. I read my new Ratzinger book: Seek That Which Is Above. And I stared at the clouds and the grass and listened to and looked at birds flitting about in the trees. Heard and then saw a red-wing blackbird.
Dom came home with Easter candy. More candy I should say since I got a bit the other day. But I didn’t get bigger treats like chocolate rabbits. He got everything: rabbits, crosses, marshmallow Pooh and Piglet and more chocolate eggs, more plastic eggs. We’re going to be drowning in candy. My sister got some too…. it was on sale! But still no Easter grass for the baskets. I thought there was some left over from last year but I can’t find it after the move.
And then the girls woke up and Dom took them to play in the back yard nwhile I finished dinner. It takes me back to last summer when that was our standing routine. Bella knew: Daddy’s home means go out to play. Now Sophie knows it too. She greets him enthusiastically and then whines until they go out. Frantic fit if it doesn’t happen fast enough. She is so like her sister, she wants to be OUT. And she lets you know it.
The lamb came out perfectly. I made a great tangy tzatziki with cucumbers, mint, lemon juice, greek yogurt. No garlic. I used dried mint from Theresa’s garden in Texas. The most pungent mint, so much better than the stuff from the store and it was a couple of years old. I also made cheesy mashed potatoes—so decadent. They have butter, milk, cheese, whole milk yogurt. And green peas with butter. Dom read the passage from Exodus about the passover as we ate. A nice touch.
None of us made it to Mass. Sophie hits crisis point at about 7:15-7:30. And she needs me to nurse her at bedtime so I can’t delegate those duties to Dom. It will probably be years before I’ll be able to go to any of the Triduum liturgies. Next year Benedict will still be too small. And who knows after that… Which makes me very sad, I do love them so. But we prayed Evening Prayer together after the girls were in bed. Haven’t done that in a while. Probably not since Sophie was born.
We had a minor crisis at bedtime. We have four crib-sized sheets. One was on Sophie’s bed. The other three were waiting to be washed. I could have sworn that one was in the dryer, but I’d gotten a bit behind on the laundry and forgotten. I had to get creative and double fold a full-sized sheet. Fortunately, Bella didn’t mind the change. I’m thinking we’ll have to switch to pull-ups at nap. Bella just isn’t staying dry consistently and is so distressed when she wakes up soaking wet, poor thing.
Now all is quiet. This is always my favorite time of day. Everyone sleeping, my mind wakes up and I am so tempted, always so tempted to stay up far too late. Recently I’ve been staying up too late every night and I feel it in the mornings and mid afternoon. But I do love the quiet hours of the night, the stillness and peace and satisfaction of completion. Even if much remains undone, there is nothing I can do about it now. I’ll have to face it tomorrow.
