What We've Been Up To: A Quiet Easter Morning at Home

Monday, April 5, 2010

A Quiet Easter Morning at Home

Yesterday morning we woke up with no where to go. No one to call. Nothing pressing that HAD to be done. What a nice start to a quiet family Easter at home. The kiddos came in and crawled all over us in bed and we snuggled and cuddled a bit before Daddy headed down the stairs to make us all some waffles. After breakfast we all headed outside where it appears a rabbit had come to hide some eggs for the kids (and daddy) to find. There were 25 blue ones for a little boy, 35 pink ones for a little girl, and 45 green ones for the 30-something peter pan in our house. Much to her delight, and daddy's chagrin, my sweet daughter won the hunt by finding all of her eggs first. Her brother somehow lost two eggs (I'm guessing they were eaten) so we're not sure when he finally had all of his, but Daddy brought up the rear by finding his last egg after everyone else. What a very fun morning full of warm and cozy memories. I am so very thankful for our many blessings and the ability to spend days like this with such wonderful people.

There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all. This is just as true of the man who puts “native” before the hyphen as of the man who puts German or Irish or English or French before the hyphen. Americanism is a matter of the spirit and of the soul. Our allegiance must be purely to the United States. We must unsparingly condemn any man who holds any other allegiance. But if he is heartily and singly loyal to this Republic, then no matter where he was born, he is just as good an American as any one else. The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities, an intricate knot of German-Americans, Irish-Americans, English-Americans, French-Americans, Scandinavian-Americans, or Italian-Americans, each preserving its separate nationality, each at heart feeling more sympathy with Europeans of that nationality than with the other citizens of the American Republic. The men who do not become Americans and nothing else are hyphenated Americans; and there ought to be no room for them in this country. The man who calls himself an American citizen and who yet shows by his actions that he is primarily the citizen of a foreign land, plays a thoroughly mischievous part in the life of our body politic. He has no place here; and the sooner he returns to the land to which he feels his real heart-allegiance, the better it will be for every good American.
-Theodore Roosevelt