a good brother

The Holy Ghost goes to bed at midnight, nothing good happens after 10 o'clock, and all my patience and kindness disappear at 8 pm.

We had our Easter egg hunt this morning because we spent Friday and Saturday in Chicago.  We dyed Easter eggs last night at 8:30, and by the time we did scriptures and prayers at 9:00, I was coming unhinged.  "Can we have a story?" asked Anne.

"No! I read you one earlier.  Now get to bed, so I can get some stuff done.  If I don't get to bed, the Easter bunny doesn't get to bed, and if we don't get to bed, he doesn't get up in the morning to hide your eggs."

"Why can't the Easter bunny go to bed if you don't?" Anne wondered.

Before I could tell her exactly why in an exhausted rage, Damon jumped in, "Because Mom has to tell the Easter Bunny where he can hide the eggs and which baskets are ours."  I was touched that he wanted to spare Anne the ugly truth I shared with him when he was 4 and asked if the Easter Bunny was real.

But not so touched that I didn't start ranting about cancelling the egg hunt if they didn't get in bed RIGHT NOW when Anne whined one more time for a bedtime story.

And then the girls got in bed and Damon read them a story.