EASTER

for me one of the most beautiful things about motherhood is that it lets me to relive my own childhood and enjoy doing things I used to do when I was a kid.

Catholic and Orthodox traditions of celebrating Easter are quite different but what we have in common is decorating the eggs. and this is what I remember most from my childhood about his holiday – my mom dying eggs into deep maroon by boiling them together with onion skins; uneven marble-like color that you can scratch off with a sewing needle to make ornamental etching. we also used to wrap stripes of fabric around the eggs to add patterns.

but one egg was always the most special. it was the one my father and I hand-painted together, and it was a keepsake. we usually picked the most white and perfect from the bunch, made a tiny hole on the top and blew out the inside to make it hollow. then wiped it with alcohol to clean the surface and prepare it for the paint. most often we used watercolors, my favorite set of honey-based Leningrad I still treasure. my father, being an artist, always had the most amazing collection of brushes he kept inside a tall dark green clay vase. I was fascinated with the brushes because he told me that they were made with squirrel tails. for Easter he always took the whole vase out and I was allowed to pick couple of brushes I want to draw with: wide and flat for the fill-in color, pointy for little details. with sharp pencil we would sketch the base drawing. and then spent time coloring the inside parts and finessing the details, usually the night before Easter, in the darkness of my parents living room, under a yellow spot light of a table lamp. last step was a top layer of transparent lacquer to preserve the masterpiece. when I was older I started making keepsake eggs all by myself, picking more and more complicated subjects to paint. one of these fragile keepsakes survived through the years and apartment moves – it depicts a miniature of Vladimir mother of God with baby Christ. with time the protective lacquer coating has cracked and added resemblance to the original inspiration.

reliving those moments all at once while making the very first special egg for my son was so magical and happy. I took out my very own collection of brushes I accumulated during teenage years in art school, as well as my honey-based watercolor set – all dusty and long forgotten in the drawers with art supplies. I was nervous as my drawing skills became quite rusty after years of no use. but it was easy to decide what am I going to draw. I wanted Leo to see the egg and get excited. so i picked the character from Leo’s favorite cartoon about Iittle lion and turtle. Leonardo always smiles when he watches it and I was hoping he would smile when he sees lion’s mug on the egg. I found a picture of the lion online and got lost in the process of drawing, painting, remembering, savoring, smiling.

luckily, for this very first Leo’s Easter my mom (Leo’s grandma) was here. she made the traditional red-colored onion-skins eggs, just like when I was little. when I finished painting Leo’s egg and left it to dry, my husband and I etched the red eggs for each other and for my mom.

on Easter Day we didn’t do egg hunt because Leo was still too little for it. nor he was impressed with a chocolate bunny (he might has inherited a complete indifference to chocolate from me?. but his very own little lion egg was a success! he seemed to recognize the beloved character and stretched his little hands towards it. we cracked it open for him, mixed the hard boiled egg with avocado, and let him enjoy the taste of the very first Easter, while photos were taken for keepsakes.