Giving Easter the Bunny

Lets talk about entitlement…and holidays and getting stuck, and being PART of the problem….promise this post will NOT be a novel….at least I hope it won’t cause I still have to go make the Easter Potato Salad for tomorrows Dinner.
Anywho….being Easter and all and *most* of my thoughts turned to Christ and his Atonement…some of my more material girl side have be humming this lil’ ditty in my head….and when I went to youtube watch it I saw this “original version”…and I out loud said…”THAT CUCUMBER IS RADtastic”….so for pooh & giggles, pick. Pick you childs most crazy wanted, most obsessed over, most if you don’t give it to me random item and stick it in place of the bunny. This was perfect for me, I could toss in “cell phone”, “hooker shoes”, a “T.V. in my room”….infact my teen wanted to let me know, that instead of an I.pod touch (that she is sooooo NOT getting) for her birthday she would prefer a motorcycle. Snort


So imagine my 7 littles walking around singing “The Bunny song”…I can hear Cookie in the tub right now turning it into an Opera Aurea. Anyway….the HARD thing about entitlement, is that it gets under our skin, it makes us NOT want to give in, or “give” anything…I have never felt so closed fisted in my life, I LOVE to give gifts….but after my kids got home , my past high of gift giving became a source of contention for me. Some of my kids have no idea what gratitude looks like, what being content with what you have feels like, how NOT to continue to take, even when your arms are full…why BECAUSE they are STILL in survival mode. They are still trying to fill up those empty feelings in their life, and nothing will ever be enough until I can help them patch those holes in their proverbial buckets….as a girl who learned to eat her feelings during their four year adoption process I should know that…but no, I mostly just get irritated when the “I WANTS” come out to play.

It’s Easter weekend, we do it as a weekend. About eight years ago when my babies were really just babies, I wanted the focus of the Resurrection to be on Christ, and so “The Bunny” comes on Saturday morning…we do the Egg hunts, the candy gorging…the material “fun holiday stuff” on Saturday, leaving the importance of the true holiday of Sunday Worship. I LOVED doing it this way…and now with the sabotage tendencies…It works for our now bigger more intensive in the needs department family….

So “The Bunny” showed his Fuzzy Tail this morning, bringing shoes (cause my kids REALLY needed them) that Easter Bunny is a pretty practical guy! Instead of toys for the kids to argue over …he brought individual baggies of carrots and dip, apple slices, whole grain gold fish..and whoppers eggs (so just little chocolate)….also new toothbrushes….with their names already written permanent marker, remind me to kiss him later.

Off the SUBJECT: but you will get to where I am going….I ran into my friend Chavonne and her awesome Hubbie in the JC Penny parking lot with my two older girls today. She has two darling Haitian girls of her own from the same O….I haven’t seen her since August…and like most of us..we run into each other and it is a talk fest…we chatted and shared and laughed and teared and …my poor girls went and sat in the car and listened to the radio for at least an hour. When the conversation turned to attachment, and what we are doing to hinder, the “I don’t wanna’s ” on our parts to do our part of attachment…I felt proud of one example I could give of a success I recently had in my own issues with my daughters entitlement.

The hooker shoes. O.K. , O.K. I will stop calling them that…well maybe.
My beautiful girl, being older and from a different culture, has a COMPLETELY opposite opinion on clothing, beauty and what is attractive. Is is right or wrong? No, and academically I get that. BUT and I mean a BIG FAT BUT…it drives me CRAZY…

Hello my idea of style is “There is a Chuck Taylor for that”….I grew up with brothers, I grew up with hippies and skaters…and NONE of those things = shoes with heels, blue eye, shadow tight clothes, bling and being sexy. (Full body shudder)My idea of accessorizing is Sunglasses on my head..and MAYBE a pair of earrings. Hello prom, I wore a white dress…and puma skate shoes, wedding white dress, white Converse…I didn’t start wearing make-up until age 18..and still wear it only if necessary….and I am a Mother to a DIVA, a couple in fact…God obviously has a great sense of humor.

And so…we are financially deficient as of late, and well, my kids needing shoes…it was the PERFECT gift for our kiddo’s.

7 different coupons in hand, I went shopin’ would you believe, 9 pairs of shoes later $76.34….awwwwww yeah!
While in the store I had some darling flats that I loved, picked out for my teen. They would have been sufficient, she would have “liked them”…and well she needed black church shoes. I KNEW she would not LOVE them like Bugs was going to love her blingy tennis shoes, or shriek with joy like Diva and Chatter would at the light up flip-flops….so I looked for something she might LOVE. I got over myself for a second. I am so strict with her about dressing like a young Lady , and not a Lady of the Night….I forget to meet her in the middle, find the places I can budge and move and try, instead of expecting her to come the whole way. So I went all of the way. I bought black sexy, stiletto heels. UGH. But I did it….

I for once gave her “the bunny”….and she LOVED her Mama for it….can you see the shock, the smile the SURPRISE! …..and that is sometimes IMPORTANT…not letting our constant battle for control blind sight the IMPORTANCE of not ALWAYS making our kids meet us half way, or even come ALL the way…but shocking the pants off of them, when it is in a safe way…and coming all of the way.

….by the way..brand of the shoes….”City Streets”, I’m just sayin’…

Boring-Smoring Mama...and the girl who loves her

Happy "Bunny Day" ya'll!!!