"It didn't feel like Eid."

"It didn't feel like Eid," they complained.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

We had spent the day going to Chuck E. Cheeses, where they got to play the games minus the crowd, and redeem their receipts for prizes, visited T and S, and entertained the brothers the whole afternoon, plus they got to goof around with Ammu B from afternoon till evening.

"There were no women," they replied.

I sighed. I had decided, for this year, that we were not going to invite both brothers and sisters because of Baby Z's bad case of eczema. His eczema is so bad that it's all over his body, unlike S's (and I had considered S's eczema to be the worst of all three of them), and it seems that it flares up, complete with hives due to unknown causes, which I have yet to discover. If I were to invite the sisters, it would just be too hectic with me having to nurse him in between entertaining people, and I wouldn't be able to just put him down anywhere (for dust mites or any other foreign particles might be the cause of his hives). It's simply easier for my husband to just invite the brothers. Plus, we already have too much ants upstairs in the kids' room (where we never had them before) that I didn't want us to eat upstairs (which would be the case were we to invite both the brothers and the sisters). The logistics just weren't working out with Baby Z's eczema.

This year's eid however was the most relaxing for me. While hubby entertained the brothers downstairs, and the kids played with Ammu B, I slept with Baby Z in our room. Sure, I had to bustle in the kitchen before, but once the pulut kuning and rice were done, I was home free.

All these years, Eids have been somewhat of a source of stress for me as I have had to prepare food for our guests the night before, most times even cooking after Fajr on the Eid day, rushing to the Eid prayers and rushing back home to receive the guests. Then, we would also be rushing to Chuck E. Cheeses with the kids so they could have their fill of Eid, which is exclusively for them. So it rather surprised me to hear them complaining that this year's Eid didn't feel like Eid.

"Our house last year was brighter, this year it's darker. There were not a lot of people."

Well, I guess, we have gotten the kids used to having a LOT of people over on Eid day, such that when we had people over so that they all have enough room to sit, the kids considered it 'not Eid enough'.