Easter bunny to the next level

This year I learned something. I learned that hiding an Easter basket is not the norm. My whole life the Easter bunny hid a basket of candy. I was under the impression this was standard. Even after I learned “the truth” of the Easter bunny, the basket was still hidden. Sometimes, it would take hours to find. Sometimes days. I accepted this was the standard practice in homes across America without question! Until this year.

APPARENTLY, it is not normal to hide your kid’s Easter basket. It is not normal to make them spend hours looking for it. I learned this through a series of awkward conversations on Easter morning. One such occurring at church when a kindly gentleman looked at my kids, “and what else do you have planned for this Easter day?”

“Still trying to find our dang baskets.”
He looked at me with his kindly eyes as if to say please translate this confusing sentence of your offspring. Naturally I interpreted his look as one of awe and respect at reaching this accomplishment: the post-church hunt status.

“Yep,” I said, feeling rather smug, “the bunny found some really good spots this year I guess.”
“The bunny hid their baskets?”
“Well” *wink wink* *nudge nudge* “you know, the bunny.”
“How curious that they’re hidden.”

Hubs’ retort, “I’ve spent 10 years thinking it was odd.”
“You never said anything?”
*shrug*

Another friend said, “what a strange but fun idea.” But it really sounded like she ended that in a question mark…

Meanwhile my entire childhood of Easters flashed before my eyes.

The point is I grew up in a house where you had to look for your basket and this continued until you no longer lived in the house.

Now my kids are a bit young so we always hide the baskets in reasonably easy spots. Despite our best intentions we second-guess ourselves the night before and our super tricky ideas pivot into:
-under a blanket on the couch
-buried in the stuffed animal bin
-in the clothes drier
-in the oven
-in a spare kitchen cabinet

Every year within 5 minutes they complain they can’t find them, they want a clue, they whine, they fuss, then inevitably find them 5 minutes later. Then they complain it was too easy – we need to make it harder, that wasn’t even fun, this is so boring, what are we even doing next today anyway.

Game on, kids. There was no second-guessing this year and there was no mercy.

1. We hid the small one’s basket on a hanger in her brother’s closet between all his sweatshirts.
2. We took an air register vent off the wall, removed the filter and hid the boy’s inside the wall.
3. The eldest…the eldest has really been stretching her wings lately – reaching for that adult level sarcasm and sass. It’s not great. So I unrolled a sleeping bag, put hers inside it, re-rolled it and stored it on the top shelf of the linen closet.

We warned them the night before. We said no clues, no hints, no questions. Don’t even bother asking. You may start at 7 a.m. and it may take you days. They laughed at us! The audacity.

At 7 a.m. I started a timer on my phone and settled into a cup of coffee. It was like Christmas morning, but better.

7:02 – the littlest one asked for a hint.
7:05 – the biggest declared it the hardest thing she’d ever done and fell on the couch in despair.
7:10 – the littlest initiated a hunger strike.
7:15 – all three asked for a clue and said it was impossible.

At this point I said, “if you ask me for a clue I get a piece of candy from your basket when you find it.”
The boy rolled his eyes and walked. The girls said, “sounds fine, what’s the clue?”
“I didn’t say I’d give you a clue, it’s not a transaction. It’s a consequence. We told you no clues, so every time you ask you lose a piece of candy.”

I was then given the much sought after title of Meanest Mom in the World. I know, thank you, please save your applause.

By church departure I was ready to cave, mostly because they were getting pretty mean and my self-esteem was taking a bit of a blow. Hubs is the one who cleverly redeemed the situation. Without looking up from his crossword he said, “seems like there’s a lot of venting going on around here.” We all looked at him. Then I realized his plan and gave a big wink and all the kids screamed. Shortly after that we suggested the weather was more appropriate for a sweatshirt, especially for the littlest one. Another big wink was required. Lastly he said, “you kids need to learn to deal with adversity. It’s not always rainbows and unicorns.”

Yes, this is a rather niche hint. But what you must know is the sleeping bag was more of a kiddie nap-bag, with a unicorn head as the pillow and the liner was rainbow striped. The little two found theirs before church but no such luck with J.

She spent the drive muttering “unicorns and rainbows” under her breath like it was an expletive. After church I added that she may need to sleep on it before the clues made sense. Eventually she got there.

I think the real prank in all this is the fact I’ve spent my whole life and 10 years of marriage under the impression everyone is hiding Easter baskets for their kids. When I regaled my parents with this story they scolded me that I needed to “work my way up to that level of hiding.” Like I was the moron…

Baskets and bunnies aside, Easter really is special. As we sang in church, the only reason we can say Friday is Good is because Sunday is coming and we sure are thankful for that empty tomb and the hope Jesus has brought. Our church held an outdoor service under a covered pavilion and it was pretty special to watch and hear the rain pour down all around us but still see a bit of sun peeking through the mountains and the clouds.

Hubs declared no more hiding of the baskets, that this year proved it’s the worst. But I have a feeling we’re both already eyeing up some good spots.

(And I know I said I had a sponsor announcement but that’s going to have to wait a few weeks because we’ve got a good thing going here with the bunny theme.)