To Dye For

Madeline colored Easter eggs that were to "dye for" on Good Friday. (Forgive the terrible pun. When I worked as an assistant editor, my boss used to bring me into her office when she needed a pun for a headline but after a few minutes of my relentless pun brainstorming, she'd laughingly roll her eyes and send me away.) We colored eggs last year, but she was a bit too young to get into it. This year was a different story. She was quite absorbed in the entire process - from stirring the dye into vinegar and warm water with Daddy to dropping the eggs in the colorful pools with spoons. She made an egg for us all, including her baby sister, and she's still talking about her artwork.

During our egg-coloring event, I thought of an easy trick for adding a little pizzazz to your eggs. Put mini stickers on an egg (like circles, stars or other shapes) and then dunk them into the dye. Let the egg dry and then dip it into another color and viola! You've got an artsy egg. I created a blue egg daubed with tiny pink stars.

Of course, the finished product of all of our eggs could have been cracked, puke-green ovals and Madeline would have seen them as art.

After we turned our eggs into a heaping bowl of egg salad, Madeline kept asking, "Where Easter eggs at?" Fortunately, we have a photo of all her eggs on display and looking at her creations seemed to satisfy her. I'm already looking forward to next year. I think I'll experiment with some natural dyes, but I never plan on getting too fancy. I was amazed at the array of egg-coloring kits out there when all you really need is a few different dye colors and your imagination. We had only three dyes - yellow, pink and blue, but we ended up with a plate full of varicolored eggs and a very happy 2-year-old.

Happy Easter!