Family Night

Boo has been anticipating "family night" at school. The preschool does two of these a year, one at Halloween and one at Easter. The premise of tonight: bring your own eggs, the school provides the dye and takes care of the clean-up. Then all the kids have an Easter Egg hunt in the classroom/church. This event involves both the three year old and the four year old class plus siblings.

Boo was thrilled at the idea of dying eggs. He was happily helping Mammo boil them this morning as I left for work. When I arrived back at her house this evening to pick him up, instead of being met with the usual disappointment (he's NEVER ready to leave) he declared "It's TIME!" We arrived at the school and he darted up the stairs to the fellowship hall. He quickly surveyed the room and to no one's surprise, chose to sit next to Little Britches. As they dipped their eggs together side by side, Boo spontaneously announced "I love you LB." And LB replied "I love you too Boo." They made quick work of dying the eggs and were thrilled with the results. After the dying was done the kids grabbed their baskets and Mrs. K announced the rules of the hunt. She did a quick head count, pulled out her calculator, and told us that each child was allowed to pick up 11 eggs. And with that, 18 screaming munchkins with baskets streamed down the stairs followed by grinning parents with cameras.

The low-hanging fruit was plucked quickly. After a brief search of the first room, Boo had no eggs. He ran into the next room with a huge grin on his face and watched other kids grab the obvious eggs before he had the chance. He suddenly started moving toward despair, exclaiming that he couldn't find any. There was distress in his voice and I knew I'd better step in before the meltdown started. But before I had the chance, in stepped Little Britches. He was calm and reassuring. "Don't worry, Boo, I'll help you." LB already had five eggs in his basket. He walked around the building finding eggs and selfishly handing them over to Boo. After they each had five, they continued to work together to find more eggs. I was in awe once again of this sweet little boy and the instinctual way that he loves Boo and keeps him on an even keel. Our plan is for Boo to attend a private parochial school when he starts kindergarten this fall. My one major misgiving in this is the idea of separating Boo and LB. I only hope that our efforts at maintaining the friendship are successful, and that we find another friend at the new school as wonderful as LB has always been.