Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be surrounded by boys of various ages and tendencies with access to tons of candy and treats? Well, neither have I! But yesterday I got the wonderful opportunity to enjoy this treat anyway!
Let’s start at the beginning . . .
Saturday afternoon – our annual egg-dye-athon with a total of dadadada 3 dozen eggs this year! Yup, 3 dozen seems to be the going rate for enough eggs for the four older ones who feel the need to become eggstravagant artists this one day of the year (pardon my puns).
While dying eggs up comes the subject of THE EASTER BUNNY! Now, I need to say right up front that I have never taught my kiddos to believe in the Easter Bunny. Not that I have anything against him, it was just one of those things we weren’t going to worry about. Well, my ever imaginative and thinky type boy, son 2 (age 8) decided that he needed to have a rousing and deeply theological discussion regarding belief in the Easter Bunny (oddly reminiscent of another such discussion regarding Santa Claus this Christmas?) Anyway, it goes something like this . . .
- Son2: “Mom, do you believe in the Easter Bunny?”
- Mom: “Why? What are you thinking about?”
- Son2: “I don’t think Dad believes in him.”
- Mom: “Really? Huh.” (thinking maybe, just maybe the subject might die haha)
- Son2: “Yeah, . . . ”
Thankfully at this moment Son1 decided to jump in and finish up the discussion. Funny thing is that Son1 isn’t always sure how to handle this type of subject. He knows the truth and yet he seems to almost know what each of his brothers needs to believe at this moment. Kids are funny!
Moving on to Sunday morning. I wake up and proceed with my morning as usual. Beeline to the shower then out to start coffee, somewhere in the process I notice a line-up of boys sitting on the couch in the living room. I stop, I look at them, I think to myself “Am I missing something?”, still thinking . . . . . then suddenly AHA! Easter Baskets!
I had filled them several nights before and they had been waiting in my room. “You guys aren’t waiting for something are you?” They look at me annoyed that I would ask such an outrageous question. “Ok, go wait” They sit. “Well, I don’t have to hide them, that’s fine” (thinking to myself “Why did we ever start hiding Easter Baskets in the first place?”) Suddenly 4 boys rush out of the room to hide in the back bedroom.
Since hiding the baskets is more of an afterthought to me this year I don’t go into it with my usual gusto. They just like the idea anyway since it is a tradition. So 4 baskets into 4 corners of the room, call the boys, boys come running, “you that side”, “you that side”, “you over there”, and “you right there” they scamper off in glee (yes, you heard me, GLEE!) Baskets found, rushed to the kitchen table and quickly opened to see how much candy they can possibly consume before Mom catches on and stops the insanity. For Heaven’s sake Candy before Breakfast? UGH! Hubby looks at me laughing – like I’m totally silly and do not get the whole point of boys and candy – can you blame me? I grew up in a house with all girls and everything on Holidays was very ordered!
OK, now what? Oh, yeah, confiscate the remaining candy from baskets “But boys, your baskets need to be emptied for the egg hunt at Grammies later!” is my excuse . . . they buy it, candy is put up – WHEW! Here we are just starting to eat breakfast and the boys already have a sugar high – here we go!
Now comes the fun part, getting everyone ready for church. New shirts, khakis, tennis shoes, hair fixed, wait . . . tennis shoes on Easter Sunday? COME ON! We are ready 45 minutes too early – now what? Boys watch a few minutes of TV (to keep them clean!), babies take a quick nap and we start loading up the car. Finally, it is time to go, we start getting everyone lined up – “SON3 WHERE ARE YOUR SHOES?” (now, mind you he’s been sitting watching TV this whole time and had been told to get his shoes on over an hour earlier).
Son3 replies “I dunno!” AAAAAAAAAAAAAHH! He goes off looking for the mysteriously missing shoes acting like he’s the victim (I’m NOT buying!), meanwhile I look in the shoe basket residing next to the front door and lo and behold guess what I find? That’s right, a pair of his dress shoes (did I mention that the particular shoes he was looking for were white basketball shoes? ugh)! Ok, now are we ready?
Everyone loaded, off to Church we go! Church is as uneventful as it can be when children are being served pancakes with STRAWBERRIES (hello, strawberries? Just pancakes is good enough! ugh!), the preschool staff is freaking out because there is milk products in pancakes and your 3 year old is allergic to milk (no worries he just can’t drink it LOL) and you have twins who aren’t healthy enough to attend the nursery! But we made it!
Next stop, Grammy & Bapa’s! We arrive just in time to sit down to a Turkey dinner (Yes, I was a bit surprised too, but it was good!). Eating dinner with all of my family (Dad, Mom, 2 sisters, 1 BrotherInLaw, 2 teenage brothers, my hubby & 6 kids, my 1 niece and my 3 nephews) can be an interesting event. Mom’s latest trend is to seat everyone almost randomly around one huge table – yup, no kid’s table. As a mom who likes to keep close tabs on all of her kids (crazy but true) this can be a bit overwhelming, but I survived!
Clean up dinner and immediately move on to the egg hunt! We let the three babies hunt for teeny tiny eggs and treats in the family room and they thought it was too fun. They would pick up one or two of the mini-plastic eggs and just sit there and shake it! It was very cute and very fun! Last year they were so tiny it was all we could do to just get to Easter at my parents’! This year here they are with the big brothers to help of course, livin’ the life!
Then there’s the big kids’ hunt. While the babies were enjoying their moment, the dads (and my 16 year old brother) were out hiding eggs for the older kids. There was a TON of stuff to hide this year since my mom added several bulk boxes of goodies to the mix – the guys were out there hiding stuff forever. Finally, armed with babies, baskets and cameras the hunt was on! We let the 3 preschoolers go first, then a couple minutes later the 7 year olds, then the 8 year old and finally the 11 and 14 year old (with strict instructions to search the furthest perimeters of the hunting grounds!). It was absolute pandemonium! Parents everywhere, babies waddling around, preschoolers dumping all of their loot, tweens and teens hooting and hollering and everyone running here and there. Too funny!