The Saturday Post: Egg inspiration edition

Tonight Jim, Brianna, Andrea and I will color our Easter eggs. I thought I was being fairly creative by breaking with tradition and buying all we need to try decorating our eggs using Kool Aid. Well, let's just say our colorful eggs to come ain't got nothing on these interesting creations, some of which I plan to try out next year.

Today's question:

What is your most tried and true egg-decorating technique?

Grandma was a bully

I'm ashamed to admit that I was a sixth-grade bully. As an individual, I didn't have the personality to be a bully on my own. But in a group, I was just as guilty as the others of hurtful and hateful acts upon fellow students.

Two acts stand out in my memory:

• Once when the teacher had left the room for a bit, my classmates and I managed to hang a shorter classmate from a classroom doorknob by the band of his underwear. The bigger and tougher boys grabbed him and hung him while many of us girls giggled not only at the boys doing the dirty deed, but at the poor kid grasping for all he could to get down from the door knob and away from the embarrassment.

• Even worse was the time a group of us yet-to-develop girls decided to prove a bra-wearing and seemingly better developed girl in the class stuffed her bra. We decided to do the big reveal in front of some boys just to show them that she wasn't as endowed as she seemed and they could stop ogling her and her fakery. Turned out, much to our chagrin and her traumatic embarrassment, that her breasts were indeed real.

How very, very horrible we were.

At the time, these incidents were no big deal to me despite how painful they must have been to the ones we bullied. Since then, as a mother, as a grandmother, it breaks my heart that I participated in such cruelty. I'm sincerely sorry for what I did, but apologies make no difference for the damage and hurt that was done.

Such transgressions have crossed my conscience many a time in the decades since, but they've been especially top of mind since watching the following trailer. Released in select areas in March, Bully is a movie we all should see, consider, share.

As parents and grandparents, we can't shy away from doing our part to prevent bullying and to stop bullying when we see or suspect it—especially if we once were a bully or bullied ourselves. Find more info on the Bully movie Facebook page.

Today's question:

Were you ever a bully or bullied?

Easter in an empty nest: 9 no longers

1. No longer do I set out Easter decorations. At least not this year. Maybe next year. Or maybe at least a centerpiece for Easter dinner this year. Maybe.

2. No longer do I buy Easter outfits.

3. No longer do I referee arguments during egg coloring over who got the purple first, who dipped their "dirty" blue spoon into the yellow, and who is copying whom on the designs drawn with crayons.

4. No longer do I have three girls in the pew next to me covering their ears so they don't jump at the strepitus at the end of the Good Friday Tenebrae service.

5. No longer do I remind my daughters at bedtime on Easter eve to make "nests" with their baby afghans for their baskets so the Easter Bunny can easily find them for filling in the night.

6. No longer do I nibble on carrots left for the Easter Bunny.

7. No longer do I play Easter Bunny at all.

8. No longer am I awakened Easter morning by little ones—or big ones—tiptoeing down the stairs to see what the Easter Bunny left in their baskets.

9. No longer do I have to say again and again and again to "Put the candy away NOW and go get ready for church."

I miss all that.

Well, maybe not No. 9.

Because I still say that.

Only now I say it to Jim.

Again and again and again.

(Just for old time's sake.)

Today's question:

How has Easter changed for you in the last few years?

Bad grandma

I've always fancied myself a pretty darn good grandma, one who goes out of her way to spread love and joy and special acts of kindness and self-sacrifice all for the sake of her grandsons.

A conversation I had with Megan over the weekend made it clear my delusions of grandmotherly grandeur and goodness may be exactly that—delusions. I'm not all that good. And not all that self-sacrificing. At least not all the time.

I'm scheduled to soon babysit Bubby and Baby Mac for the longest duration I have yet. It's a stint of nearly 10 days on my own—no Megan, no Preston, just me and the boys at their place. Such a stint feeds into my "I'm a good grandma" belief.

Well, Megan and I were discussing this and that over the weekend, and she just so happened to mention that Bubby has started pooping his pants. On a fairly regular basis. This is a kid who's been potty trained for, gosh, well over a year.

Sure, potty-training regression is to be expected when there's been a big change in a little one's life. But Bubby's big change happened nearly a year ago when Baby Mac came along. And several months ago when they moved into a new house. No poopy pants at the time of either of those events.

Now, though, Megan reports that at least once a day Bubby will traipse off to a corner where he thinks he's hidden and do the dirty deed in his big boy undies...then wait quite some time before telling Mommy about it.

Megan's perplexed. And I'm concerned only for myself.

"Yuck! You sure as heck better have that all figured out before I get there," was my instant, unfiltered response. "That's definitely not something I want to deal with."

Yep, I'm a bad grandma. A bad grandma who has no problem whatsoever changing poopy diapers of newborns, infants, even young toddlers who've not yet been potty trained. But big butts of big boys who have fairly big poops is, like I said, definitely not something I want to deal with.

Megan's researched solutions and is working fervently to bring success.

I'm crossing my fingers that success comes sooner rather than later. Only 16 days til I head to the desert. And only 17 days til I get really unhappy if I have to clean up poopy pants on a boy who's nearly four years old.

Today's question:

When did you last change a poopy kid—diapered or otherwise?

My backyard buds

A weekend of record-breaking temps and abundant sunshine caused many a plant at my place to burst forth with joy far sooner than they typically do.

Here are a few shots I took around my yard Saturday and Sunday:

Of course, the guy below was pretty happy with the warmth, too, as was his camera-shy cohort who slithered away before I could capture them together—in a photo, not in my hands!

Today's question:

What signs of spring are you seeing around your place?