Adelaida's second chance Easter egg hunt, and a very proud moment

Last night we attended another Easter egg party, this time for my moms group. There were twenty-seven kids there, ranging in age from two months to eleven years old. Rather than send all the kids out to hunt eggs at once, the younger kids (under three) had a five-minute head start before the older kids started collecting eggs. When I told Adelaida that we were going to another Easter egg hunt, she told me that she was going to find an Easter egg and put it in her bag all by herself. I knew that finding one by herself would really boost her confidence, and I wanted her to succeed. So even though Adelaida is already three, I let her go with the younger kids -- she is so calm and slow that I wasn't worried about her racing through the yard and collecting all the eggs before the older kids got to them!

Two wonderful friends in the group offered to hold Estella and Cordelia, so I was free to walk around with Adelaida and take some pictures.

Adelaida walked out to the yard, very carefully holding her Easter egg bag open. She was so intent on holding her bag open that she almost tripped over an Easter egg! I tried to gently encourage her to look down at the ground to find some eggs, but she walked right over that first egg.


Then, she spotted an egg on the ground in front of her, ran to it, and picked it up. Yay! She found an Easter egg, all by herself! She announced that it was pink, "just like the pink egg Alessandra gave me," and put it in her bag.


She continued walking, checked in with her friend Olivia, and they briefly compared egg baskets.


Another egg, and another ...


... and her Easter egg bag was starting to get full!


She found a few more eggs before the bigger kids came out. We counted her eggs and found eight Easter eggs that Adelaida had found all by herself!


After the big kids came out the game changed from "find an egg on the ground" to "walk around and watch the other kids." The Easter egg hunting continued for a while longer, and Adelaida looked on the ground, behind some rocks, under the jungle gym, and next to the fence, eager to find more eggs.

When only a few well-hidden eggs remained, another family drove up to the party. The egg hunt was coming to an end, but six-year-old Sophia ran into the yard and announced that she was going to hunt Easter eggs. Adelaida walked up to her, pulled an egg out of her bag, and handed it to Sophia.

I looked at my daughter and saw a kind, thoughtful, considerate child. I was so proud of Adelaida!