Easter 2008

It’s two days until Easter and I’m getting ready for work.  As I start to gather our things, our backpacks and lunchboxes, laptops, and briefcases, Snags comes to me carrying a plastic Target bag.  He opens the bag, holds it out just under my nose and demands, “What’s THIS? My EASTER PRESENT?!” And by God, it WAS.  Or at least it was supposed to be.  His present from the rabbit.  I’m shocked and I’m stunned. I’m also furious and tempted to say “Yes you little snoop, it WAS the stuff the Easter Bunny was going to bring you.  But now that you’ve gone and snooped around and found it, well, now he’s NOT going to bring it to you.  In fact, there is no Easter Bunny.  I am the Walrus Easter Bunny.  I hid that stuff to put it in your Easter Basket but you’ve gone and blown it now, haven’t you, you little snoop?”

But instead I said, “Um… where did you find that?” all nice and “inquiring minds want to know” like.

With a big smile on his face he says, “It was in the trunk in the spare room closet, under some towels!” 

And, yes, yes it was. That’s where I hid it.  Unsuccessfully, I might add.

The first lesson here is to NEVER hide anything that you don’t want your child to find anywhere in your own home.  At least not anywhere they can get to without a load of trouble or noise that would automatically send you running in search of the crashing sounds.

It turns out that Snags was looking for our plastic Easter eggs so he could hide them for The Best Easter Party Ever.  He wasn’t, he cried, snooping.  In fact, he only saw some of the stuff in the bag.  He thinks he recognizes “something from something” he “saw on T.V.” (Blendy Pens?) but he’s “not entirely sure.”

I told him the things in the bag were supposed to be his Easter Presents from ME.  And that now I might not give them to him until Christmas.  He cries and runs out of the kitchen.  I am mean.  He was only looking for the Easter Eggs.  He wasn’t snooping.

One day before Easter and I am back at Target, and then Toys- R-Us, fighting the crowds of all the other parents who are also now frantically searching for replacements for Easter basket gifts because their children ALSO found the stuff they had hidden away.  Or, um… maybe not.  Probably they just waited until the last minute to shop for those Easter baskets.  But, me? I think I shouldn’t be here.  I planned.  I bought.  I was ready WAY ahead of time.  That little snoop…

Eventually I find what I am looking for: some jelly beans and Mike and Ike’s and Twizzlers and Silly Putty. I head home, but this time I leave the goods in the trunk of my car.

Easter Eve.  We eat dinner and get dragged to the Best Easter Party Ever [sic].  Luckily it’s a short walk from the kitchen table to the family room.  Snags has hidden plastic Easter Eggs around the house. My husband and I have to find them.  I win the hunt when I find 19 eggs and my husband only finds 13.  Snags has filled the eggs with nickels and dimes, pennies, and Crispex cereal.  I am thankful he left the milk in the refrigerator.

Not much else happens at the party, go figure.  Snags was unable to find any party poppers or streamers and he accidentally threw away his checklist of party activities. He can’t remember what else he had planned so we eat some dessert and watch Enchanted.  Snags goes to bed in eager anticipation of the Easter Bunny, and I go to get the loot out of my trunk.

Midnight and Snags is up. He steps out of his bedroom and spies the trail of plastic eggs the rabbit has left for him to follow.  Snags wants to follow them right then, but once more I am mean.  I make him return to bed.

The second lesson here is NEVER leave any evidence that magical beings have come round in the middle of the night.  Don’t start the trail of eggs right outside the bedroom door.  Don’t leave gifts from Santa in the child’s room.  Hang a large sign on your front door reminding those that might visit, such as the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus, elves, fairies, or leprechauns, to keep to main floor, to avoid sleeping children at all costs.  If you’d like to sleep until some semblance of morning, then trust me on this.

Five hours later and it is still, in my book, not a respectable time to wake.  Snags thinks differently and of course the egg trail is calling, begging him to follow down the hall… I am tempted to let him hunt for his basket on his own, let him gorge on the candy within and open the trinkets, do what he will, as long as he lets me go back to sleep.  Instead I pull up every last ounce of parenting skill I have in reserve and I make him go back to his bedroom until some more human hour, like 7:00, rolls around.

But it’s pointless.  He’s not sleeping.  He’s in his room pulling the springy door stop back and releasing it so it Boings! Boings! Boings! Boings! Boings! itself into my brain for a full hour and thrity-eight minutes when I finally give up and let him hunt for his Easter basket.

One hour later and Snags, belly full and face covered in chocolate, jelly beans and play doh and silly putty and Mike and Ike’s scattered across the kitchen table, has a stomach ache.  I only feel a teeny bit bad for him as I make him get dressed for church.  The stomach ache, I think, is just a little bit of payback for snooping and waking me up too early. Thank you, Easter Bunny!