basket ideas

When I was at Walmart a couple days ago, J and I went down some aisles so I could get some Ostara basket filler ideas. In the crayola aisle (have you noticed that it's not just crayola crayons anymore? crayola gets a whole fricken AISLE for markers, crayons, coloring books, etc etc) I found toddler crayons. They are egg shaped (nothing to do with easter) to be easier to hold in toddler hands. Also, they aren't a crayon that can be broken into bite-sized pieces and eaten! So, I will be picking up some toddler crayons for Kevin to color with. I think that we will color some eggs and tape them to the windows next week!

I discovered that Kevin likes things with lights, especially if they blink. heaven forbid that he get ahold of one of J's flashlights (J has a zillion flashlights... in my perception lol) because I can never get him to give it up. I saw some easter blinky light things... I might get one of those to put in the basket. I think I might also look for some more large plastic non-moving-parts dinosaurs to go with his T-rex that he got at the Walking with Dinosaurs show last weekend. He loves his Rrrarrrr and plays with it all the time. I think T-Rex Rrrarrrr needs a stegosaurus or tricerotops to eat.

I am going to skip that grass shit that is usually sold to put in those baskets. I'll get it when he's older. But I'll never forget my stepsisters daughter, at the easter when she was a year old, she somehow managed to eat some of that grass, and when it came out the other end later, one end of that grass was stuck in a turd in her diaper, and the other end was stuck in a turd still inside her. I will never forget watching my mom pull that piece of grass out gently while my stepsister (who was f-n 16 at the time) hold her daughter while the poor kid screamed. No thanks. Keep your plastic grass, Walmart.

new family traditions...

So, Kevin's first year I was too wrapped up in being a new mom to consider what we would do for the holidays as a family. For those who don't really know, I am wiccan, been so for oh... 15ish years. Was practicing solitary, then part of a small group since 94. But I still practice solitary at home. My husband J is not wiccan, though he's cool with it and sometimes does go to my group's family celebrations. And he has participated in some of the things I've done at home, like wardings. Anyway... the equinox is coming. Ostara. It is thursday the 20th. I have to work that day. That's okay... maybe in the future I will take off work on holidays so that we can celebrate the holidays better.

But this comes to the major question... what traditions do we want to do to celebrate Ostara? Kevin is too young for teaching anything, and thats good because I'm not quite prepared yet, since I'm only just now figuring this stuff out. But I need to figure out what I want to do this year. In the future, I'll tell Kevin the story of how the Eostre bunny and the eggs came about. This year, for Kevin I will make him a basket of toys and a couple of plastic eggs with treasures in them that I will "hide" in the living room. I will probably make some hard boiled eggs for decorating and later eating. Since I'm going to try and garden again this year, I will be making my garden egg for burying. That will probably be a tradition I can include Kevin in, in the future. Unfortunately, I don't have time to do any psanky eggs this year, since I'll be in florida soon. I really enjoy doing psanky, but damn, it's time consuming. I'd consider doing some later, but with the cleaning I need to do, I'll wait till next year.

One good thing is that Ostara and Easter are around the same time. So saturday the 22nd, there's all kinds of egg hunts going on around town. I think I'll take Kevin to the one at the petting zoo for sure. We'll see about going to another one not far from our house. Depends on Kevin. I don't really want him to eat candy anyway so if that's all the egg hunts are, I can do without going to several.