by Diana Day
My daughter Dinah sat dutifully on the white line with a bewildered look on her face, looking around for the other kids.
Only moments before, the dance teacher had said that class was over and that it was sticker time. So Dinah made her way to the place where the teacher had asked the kids to sit the previous week — the white tape line. But this time, the teacher let the kids gather round her in a big bunch to collect their stickers.
Dinah reminded me of myself in that moment so much that my heart almost burst. The obedient good girl, so intent on following what she thought were the directions, didn’t see that it was all different this week.
I remember so many times in my childhood where I was bewildered like that, so focused on doing the right thing that I ended up missing all the new directions.
I started worrying about the upcoming Easter Egg Hunt in our town, our first hunt with the girls. I was concerned that Dinah would have an experience like the white line, where she would so lose herself in the technicalities that she’d miss the whole egg hunt. My friend suggested that I bring a couple of plastic eggs in my pocket to surreptitiously stuff in Dinah’s or Djuna’s baskets if the need arose.
Hopefully when my daughters are older I won’t be so willing to stack the deck to avoid hurt feelings. Instead, I’ll hopefully be able to let moments just be, figuring that I’ll be there to hug, hold and talk about sad things that have happened.
Hopefully.
But my husband said we’d be fine without an egg stash, so off we went to the hunt, baskets in hand, tempting fate.
Luckily we live in a terrific little town where the volunteer firefighters’ association does the deck-stacking for the parents so they don’t have to do it themselves.
The park was absolutely loaded with generous piles of donated candy, enough so no child could possibly go home empty-handed. Dinah and Djuna hunted like seasoned pros and came home with baskets filled up.
A good time was had by all.