As I sit writing this blog all my children sleep, while visions of chocolate bunnies dance in their heads, and I can smell the clean scent of watermelon shampoo wafting from their still-damp heads. After a full day of playing outside an extra scrubbing was needed, and they will be nice and clean for church in the morning. But this year I find myself relaxing in bed rather than my typical, last-minute scurrying about, laying out color-coordinated, ruffled dresses, white pantyhose, shiny shoes, and dainty purses. In fact, their clothes are still sitting in the suitcase. Talk about change!
Over the past few months, our focus had changed dramatically. I had minimalized everyone’s closets, and now we all just had a lot less. Ever since having my first daughter I fell in love with dressing a darling girl. I would stop at a department store on my break from work, going through the aisles of tiny, adorable outfits, and I would almost always leave with something new and precious. After seven years of this and two more girls brought into the family, I found myself with ruffle pants, monogrammed shirts, and smocked dresses coming out of my ears. I was drowning in darling dresses and pink pinafores. So I whittled them down.
This also came along the time of our decision to travel, so packing up and moving with a dozen outfits versus hundreds is much more practical, and easier to fit in small spaces. Our most recent journey has taken us to the warm weather of Central Florida. As such, I had packed away the winter clothing we had and placed it in storage. I had kept roughly two summer dresses apiece for each of the girls (which is a miracle in itself for a former clothes horse), but I had absolutely nothing for cooler weather. No hose, no dressy cardigans, and certainly no shiny shoes. It just didn’t fit into the new plan. Sundresses and flip-flops I had, but as I checked the weather for a trip back home to Mississippi I was met with a forecast of rain and cool temperatures. So as I packed our suitcase I resigned myself to the fact that this year would be different.
As I packed the only cool-weather outfit I had for my 5-year-old (something more appropriate for working out than Easter Sunday photos) I smiled. I smiled that it didn’t really matter.
My girls didn’t have any Easter dresses.
They didn’t have any pantyhose or patent leather shoes. No flower hats with matching purses. And that was okay. Here’s what we had instead.
On Friday I asked my 7-year-old why the day was called Good Friday, and she answered perfectly.
“What’s so good about Jesus dying?” I asked. “Why is that good?”
“Because He died for us. And He didn’t stay dead. He rose again.” She answered quickly.
That same day I had asked my 5-year-old, “why do we celebrate Easter anyway?”
