The Oldest

Just yesterday morning, Alyssa told me with a grin that she likes being the oldest. She was thinking about the day before when she and Olivia joined Jaxon at Gram's house to dye Easter eggs. Alyssa often gets to pick the activity or the prize just by virtue of being oldest.

And she really likes that. She also likes that her Easter basket is usually bigger and always harder to find. My mom gave the kids their baskets from her on Friday. And Alyssa found both O's and J's long before she found hers. But it was totally worth the search. Her loot was pretty awesome. My mom is very good to both of my children. We're very blessed.

But yesterday afternoon she was faced with a drawback of being the oldest.

We went to a community-sponsored Easter Egg hunt. My mom had read about it and picked me and A and O up for the hunt. She didn't read the fine-print though and when we got there, we realized that it was for kids infants to seven years old. Alyssa's eight.

To be honest, I found the age restriction to be a bit extreme. Eight isn't too old for hunting Easter eggs. But rules are rules and Alyssa stayed back with my mom while Olivia joined the other four and five year olds to pick up plastic eggs thrown across a field.


Anyway, after the 'hunt' we headed home where I informed the girls that I needed to go to town to pick up the ingredients for the pie I wanted to make for the dinner we were having at my mom's for Easter.

Both girls groaned and begged to just stay home. Tom was gone, he'd left to pick up a part for his chainsaw. He called soon after the girls and I got home and said he was on his way and would be here in about an hour. It was lunch time so I decided I'd make the girls something to eat and we'd wait for him and then I could just go into town ALONE. Imagine....alone.

Yes, I'm sure you can see where this is going.

The girls ate, I dawdled, Tom got home and I prepared to leave.

And both girls decided they wanted to go with me.

So they did.

And it was fine, like it always is.

As of this afternoon (Easter Sunday) Alyssa is back to really, really liking being the oldest. She found way more eggs than her younger sister and cousin, she was given a special gift from her Papa (my step-dad) and she got to boss both Olivia and Jaxon around while the 'big people' (her words) hid the eggs for her.

I'm with her, the benefits of being the oldest definitely outweight the drawbacks. I always thought so growing up with two younger brothers and a younger cousin too.