Fun Family Rituals

It's that time of year again--time to dye Easter Eggs! I have fond memories of this childhood ritual: fighting over who gets to use the official egg dipper and who is stuck with a regular old spoon, making sure that my brother, sister and I had the same number of eggs to dye, trying to use the dye before my brother started mixing them up to try to make a black egg, looking for a crayon to write on the egg...Ah yes! Fond memories, indeed.

We always used Paas dye, and we always got just the basic colors, no glitter or sparkle eggs in our house. One year, I convinced my mother to let us get the Egg shrink-wraps, I just wanted something a little more grandiose than the fizzy tabs in vinegar. This was not the fun time I anticipated. You had to put the shrink wrap around the egg and then submerge it into boiling water so the wrap melted around the egg. If you don't know my mother, let me assure you that she was not ever going to let us put our own eggs into the boiling pot of water. We were lucky if we were even able to stand next to the stove and watch.

This is the woman that used to let us get sparklers for 4th of July but then instructed us, "HOLD YOUR ARMS OUT AS FAR AS YOU CAN, NOW, LOOK AWAY!!! LOOK AWAY!!! DON'T LOOK AT THE SPARKLER, YOU MAY BURN YOUR EYES!" I wish I was exaggerating. My sister and I would have to hold our sparklers out away from our bodies and we never got to see our own sparkler designs. We could look from a distance at each other's designs. Here's how that would go:

Me: Erin, do you see mine? What does it look like?

Erin: It's really cool, make circles...Write my name!

Me: Ok. Do you see it? Does it look like your name? Can you see the letters?

Erin: Yeah, alright, now look at mine.

Me: Yay! Cool. Ok, now write my name so I can see!

Pat (our mother): Ok, that's enough, you're going to burn yourself...LOOK AWAY!

Fun, right?

So, anyway...back to the eggs.
Last night Bobby and I dyed our eggs. Rob didn't want to be involved. Must be a dad thing. My dad never seemed interested in joining the fun, either. We had a great time--I loved being able to share this tradition with Bobby--without the fighting and petty disagreements of my youth! And I even kept the egg dipper so next year, we'll each have our own!!!