Faithful to My Heart

I know it's silly.  I know it's irrational.  But it's still what I laid awake thinking about last night.

My child is lying sick in a hospital bed - she's 18 months old and had surgery yesterday.  I should have been thinking about doctors and antibiotics and stitches and gauze.  But all I could think about was her Easter basket.


See, it got left behind accidentally when we made our made dash for Dallas.  We didn't mean to leave it; it's just a funny thing that happens when you hear the words, "she might need surgery" spoken about your toddler:  all other brain function ceases.  So her Easter goodies are still sitting in our closet.

I have been working on that basket for the last month.  She has such fun things waiting for her!  She has pretty pink and purple bracelets (plastic, of course) - and some candy... not so much for her teeth to rot instantly, but enough to ensure a few trips to the dentist (plus, enough for Mommy and Daddy to have a taste, too) - and her big surprise is a set of beach toys for our trip this summer!  I also spent a solid week hand-sewing a set of Barnyard Balls for her - a pig, a chicken, a dog (my FAVE), a cat, and a sheep.  Each animal makes a different noise - Derrick had to help me find things to put inside to jingle, rattle, rock, and scrunch.

On top of all that, this is her first "real" Easter - last year she was only 6 months old, and while she did get all big-eyed when she her basket and toys (she reached first for a book), the excitement lasted about 10 seconds.  This year, though, she is old enough to get the fun of it all - to hunt eggs, although she already had to miss her school's Easter Egg Hunt, and new toys, and candy... and, the part I was absolutely most excited about... dying eggs!  I guess it's because I am an artsy-fartsy type of person... hopefully more artsy and less fartsy... but I was really looking forward to destroying my kitchen, making the house smell of vinegar, and ruining two sets of clothes so I could dye my daughter's first Easter eggs.

And last night as I lay in a strange hotel bed, fully exhausted from lack of sleep and the stress of making major decisions for someone so small, I thought of all that.

As I dressed this morning, I remembered it was Easter and, even though I wanted to feel grateful for what Easter represents, mostly I just felt sad because my baby girl was going to sortof miss it this year.  I guess my preoccupation with all this is why I didn't think much about it when Mr. Steve said someone had told him Katelyn had a delivery coming to her room.  I walked in to find a pink Easter basket all wrapped up just for her!  It was filled with all sorts of goodies - a puzzle, a new stuffed Cow (who was promptly named "Cow"), some necklaces, a bend-y bunny, crayons and a Care Bears coloring book, which I kindof want to color in myself!

Then we were invited by the hospital to an Easter program for the kids.  I'm not exactly sure what I was expecting, but it wasn't what we got.  I was immediately struck by the atmosphere in the room - sick kids were everywhere, but they didn't seem sick.  They were just happy-having-fun little kids who happened to be wearing hospital gowns or oxygen masks.  My ears adjusted to the kid's Easter music playing over the excited chatter ("...you'll be the grandest lady in the Easter parade") as we tried to decide where to begin.  As we looked around the room (and the kids!), our eyes ran from table to table to table... 5 or 6 different stations set up with various Easter activities - at one station she could ice and decorate an Easter cookie shaped like a bunny rabbit; at another were Easter color sheets and crayons; at another she could make a bunny's face out of pipe cleaners and yarn... and then I saw it at the very back of the room... a table set up to dye real Easter eggs!

Now my precious baby has not just one Easter basket, but THREE, plus a bag of goodies from her Granny.  (One basket from the hospital, one from the Easter program, and one from her Aunt T and cousins Chy and Presley)  And even though I never expected to have the chance, I got to dye Easter eggs with my daughter for her first real Easter.  These are memories I will always cherish and, this Easter, I am truly amazed at how faithful God is to my heart.

More pics are in the Facebook album, Katelyn's "Hip" Trip