Yes, I know that my kids believed longer than most these days. And I know that it was bound to happen sooner or later...and I was blessed to get the later. But, I wasn't ready. I don't know that I would have ever been. He had not been in bed very long at all and I was doing something in the hall, and heard him say "Moooommmm". Just the way he said it, I knew what was coming. I didn't even have to see his face. And he wanted to know THE TRUTH. He begged for the truth, and finally I felt I had to give it to him. This whole time, Jennifer was BEGGING and threatening him to stop asking questions and just go to sleep. She knew that her good thing was coming to an end if he didn't shut up. :)
So, we told him the truth and he was fine....for about 30 seconds. Then the crying started....and I asked him why he was crying and he said he didn't want to stop getting gifts from them. I reminded him that I had told him over and over that if you stop believing, you stop getting. He was very upset. Isn't it funny how we want to know something and then wished we hadn't found out sometimes?? But there is no going back.
I am very sorry that this cherished part of childhood has come to an end in our house, but I also know it was inevitable. I enjoyed every second of it while it lasted.
Jennifer came down after Justin had been crying a while, and was trying to sneak some suckers out of the candy jar. When I caught her, she said that Justin was having "a little trouble growing up" and I assumed that she was going to leave the suckers for him. But she said that he was going to leave them for us. While I appreciated the fact that she was trying to help her brother, I didn't feel like that would help anything.
Jennifer also begged that since I had already bought everything, could they PLEASE get their stuff one more time??
So, the Easter bunny came (possibly for the last time) but instead of dropping the baskets in their rooms, he left them on the bar in the kitchen. This allowed for a brief time of panic before the joy set in.
Obviously, we will have to come back and have further discussions about what will happen going forward, but it will be different. Possibly even easier for me, but I still wished it had never changed. I don't want my kids to grow up so fast!!
So, Sunday morning we got up and ready for church. The kids got their baskets and we headed to Noonday where they were serving doughnuts with a hug from the greeting committee (My Mom!!). We went to worship and got to sit with the Koehlers who were visiting for the first time since they left last Fall. It was a sweet and beautiful service. Then we went to work in the nursery for Mom so that she could go finish lunch.
We had the easiest Easter ever in the nursery. We only had 4 2 year olds and one of the Moms was in there with us. One of the little boys fell asleep in my arms and slept for about 30 minutes while Jennifer and the other lady took the others outside to play. I love it when I can rock a baby (or even a 2 year old!) to sleep. Sweet sweet times!!
Mom had stuffed a TON (well 3 Walmart bags full )of candy in plastic eggs and her and I hid them through the yard. It is always fun to have an egg hunt. Jake even got into the fun by finding some eggs and carefully cracking them open. Thankfully, he didn't eat any chocolate though. We did put Peanut butter in one and let him get that as his treat.
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| Justin found the prize egg!!! |
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| Getting the prize!! |
Oh, and I almost forgot that we dyed eggs the night before Easter before all the traumatic bedtime conversations. 
We left Mom and Bill's house around 5 and took Jake home before going to the Atlanta Beat game for the first time (See previous post). All in all, it was a great day with our friends and family. Thank you so much Jesus for what you did for us!! Jennifer wrote on Facebook and I really liked it:
Thank you lord Jesus for dying for me ♥ and thank you even MORE for coming back to life :)
