Let’s talk Easter with a baby, toddler, and pre-schooler. Listen, I don’t want to re-enforce gender stereotypes – maybe my daughter will be the same way when she’s old enough to participate – but my sons could literally not find an Easter egg that’s in plain view right in front of them if their life depended on it. Don’t get me wrong, the egg hunt was cute. They had their litte baskets, emptied of their play dough, bubbles, and fossil excavation kit, and ready to search. Now maybe it’s because they’re 2 & 4, maybe it’s because it was 4 in the f*%$ing morning and they refused to go to bed at a decent hour the night before, or maybe… it’s cause they’re boys.
“IT’S RIGHT THERE BUDDY, right on the chair!” My son’s looking, but where exactly his eyes are falling I can’t be sure. But obviously not on the chair? How can he miss the Easter egg sitting right there? My bet is our daughter is going to CLEAN UP when she’s able to participate. We watch our eldest run his hands along the chair, inches away from the egg, and he still cannot see it. We just sit with our coffee and laugh, but truly, without help, this egg hunt would still be going on.
Then there is the consumption of said eggs. And the bunny’s! Oh man… they got two each this year as a relative also had done up a basket for each kid and we weren’t expecting it. So much chocolate. So much sugar. It just leads to so many tears. “No, you cannot hurl yourself from the highest point of the deck onto the ground, you’ll get hurt,” somehow this boundary for safety becomes the cruelest of rules. The sugar crash? Who made that up? Certainly no one with kids like mine. “Oh they’ll sleep so well tonight!” The only way to respond to that, I’ve learned, is to smile and nod. Trying to explain to people who have either forgotten, don’t know, or never experienced, that a lack of nap, late bedtime, new sleep environment, room sharing with the entire family, and 8 lbs of chocolate consumption do not in fact lead to a restful nights sleep for everyone. Ah, they all mean well, with their encouragement to keep the kids awake and playing and “enjoying the holidays” but they aren’t the ones waking up at 4 am or throughout the night comforting everyone back to sleep.
I know it’s easier on hindsight to reflect back on how magical these times are, and I’m not trying to say they aren’t. Scenes of their little faces and chocolate covered fingers and their footed onesies pitter pattering on the floor as they run around are happily live rent free in my mind. We all know that this too shall pass, and the days are long but the years are short, etc. But this post is for the chaos. Everyone falling asleep on the car ride home and Matt and I having a beer in the driveway enjoying a few stolen moments of peace before we have to wake everyone up. The memories of falling asleep while my eldest rips around the room on all fours grunting like a possessed gremlin. Our middle seemed to have eggs on him everywhere, long after we took away his basket. We’d checked the house for any missed hidden egg – where was he getting these from? He’s crouch down in the corner and we’d hear the sound of the foil coming off the egg. HOW??? WHERE??? He’d turn and smile that chocolatey grin at us.
It’s 6 am on Easter Monday now and they can’t be stopped. At this point I just hope they consume all the chocolate now and I only have one more day to deal with the shenanigans. Then we’re home free again until Halloween, am I right? That kicks off another insane holiday season. But let us enjoy the summer first. And cheers to the last of the holiday chaos, we made it through another travel, sugar, no sleep, memory making good time holiday. On the plus, we got over 8 hours of outside time in the last two days, so finished March on a strong suit.
Until next time,
– R