5 Kids, 5 Dozen Eggs, a Smurf and Grami Saves Easter!

The older I get, the more convinced I become that my mother, aka Grami in the Wild, knows everything. EVERYTHING. Since my mom is not your usual egg, let me just give you some backstory. My mom was raised a girly girl, but yet tomboy who could rough and tumble with the boys. Saturdays in the fall you go to the church of UGA, and no one, not even God himself, is to interrupt those sacred services conducted between the hedges. Her favorite toy store is Home Depot, and blue jeans without holes is getting dressed up. All of that said, my mom can also sew, iron (this skill is very helpful), and throw New Year's parties for her daughter and her friends like nobody's business! She also happens to be my best friend. That is why, in times of crisis, her phone is one of the first to ring. This morning, I rang her off the hook.
The day started out simple enough. The kids were out of school for Good Friday and Noah and Hannah were coming over to dye Easter eggs. The dyeing of Easter eggs was always a great time for me growing up. I would go to my Nana's house and dye my own dozen eggs with my cousin. I took special care with every egg, wanting each to be just the right color. My Nana was always patient, and every year seemed to find some cool new way to jazz up the eggs. I want my children to also have these kind of memories, so the dyeing of eggs is a big deal around here, and this year, we thought it would be fun to have some friends join in the fun.
10:30 a.m. I set out the egg cups and put the tablets in the vinegar and add the water. 10 out of 20+ prepared (we were going for color variety and no fighting over colors)..I ask my trusty helper Caity to help stir up the colors to dissolve the tablets. All is going well, and I need to excuse myself to the restroom. Yes, this is where you step in and remind me that I should not leave kids and any sort of permanent coloring process unattended, even for a minute. Apparently I had a blonde moment and forgot this essential parenting guideline, because kersplat followed by MOMMY! Caity had for some reason decided to move the blue dye cup, with one hand, and it was now all over my kitchen. The stove, the sink, the refrigerator, the ovens, the countertop, and seeping into the grout on the floor. My beautiful tile floor, and most worriedly, the grout, was the quickly becoming the color of Papa Smurf. At the exact moment that I begin sopping up the mess and panic has set in, Noah and Hannah arrive. Their dad sees the mess, and helps me sop up as much as possible. All the kids are sent upstairs to play, and I am left with Papa Smurf blue grout, and visions of having to regrout a tile floor. Next stop: panicked phone call to John. I explain the disaster to him, and his position is, well, it's done, what can we do? I scream at him that we can not have blue grout and hang up. I didn't mean to yell (sorry honey), and I know I need to work on the whole not hanging up thing, but that was NOT the kind of answer or support I was hoping my dashing knight in shining armor would provide. Next call: Stanley Steamer. The woman politely confirms my fear, there is probably nothing that they can do, but they will send some one out in a few hours to give me an estimate, and let me know how much damage they can undo. John calls back, reminds me to call my mom - she knows everything about home stuff. OK. Right. Call mom - she'll bail me out - she always does! I call her office, she is out. Super, the one time she is not chained to her desk is the one time I desperately need her. Please let her have her cell phone on. Please let her hear it. Please let her figure out how to answer it. No dice. No answer. Now what? Hooray - mom calls back! She tells me all will be OK, boil some water and use that to help loosen the stain, and bust out the Comet. My mom loves Comet, almost as much as she loves duct tape(race tape). Every time she comes down and cleans anything, we seem to get a new can of Comet, as the old one can never be located. OK - she was just here a few months back, surely there is Comet under my sink - YES! There it is! I make the paste with cold water and begin to scrub. Miracles. The dye is coming up! The Comet is working! The countertop is now it's normal color and a small section of the floor is returning to it's normal sandy color! Add the boiling hot water, and within 15 minutes, crisis and new kitchen floor averted, all is well. Papa Smurf has left the building and my mom remains my hero. Even when the Stanley Steamer guys finally showed up, they said I had done a good job, and even John was impressed - he couldn't even figure out where the stain had been!
The kids had a great time dyeing the eggs (in the garage and on a tarp, with smocks on), and they are beautiful. Everyone was patient, and there was no color arguing, even though only one cup had purple...Hannah and Lindsay loved coloring with the wax crayon first and then using the dye to have the white stand out. Caity was, as usual, especially artistic and detailed with hers, while Jordan and Noah just went for rainbows of cool colors.
A few hours later, Noah and Hannah head home, their mom is ready for deviled eggs, and Jordan is on his way to an impromptu sleepover - I LOVE that he packed his Teddy! This is his first sleepover in a loonnngg time

(he sleepwalks sometimes, so normally his friends stay over here), and I miss him already. We took the girls out for pizza, and they are ready for bed. I am about to nurse my massive headache with a nice lemonade/grenadine/Absolut Citron cocktail, and watch some mindless TV. All in all, not a bad end to a day that could have ended in ruin.

5 dozen eggs, 5 happy kids, Papa Smurf has left the building, and Grami has saved Easter (well, at least the eggs, and the kids' memories), and a tradition has continued....

Life is Good! TGIGF!

PS - I have added some new pic up in the other posts, check them out!