Week 167: Easter village, egg hunts, and candy

I was kind of excited about Easter coming around, since Sam seemed to be old enough to really get into it this year. And she didn’t disappoint, but a variety of factors conspired to chill our enjoyment a bit. Literally.

First, I was off work for Good Friday so I took Sam to this kind of farm ranch thingie where they were supposed to have an übertastic “Easter Village.” Dreaming of dancing bunnies, jelly bean fountains, and all other manner of elaborate decorations, we drove out to hicksville where this place was and asked at the visitor’s desk for the most direct, pranceable path to this fabulous holiday village. What we found, instead, was a long line of children and parents waiting their turn to duck through a large piece of particle board cut and colored like a giant Easter egg.

Undeterred, I waited about half an hour in line, sitting on Samantha to keep her in place when needed. Because if it was this huge a line, it had to be good. When finally it came our turn to part the veil and enter this Shangri La of springtime festivity it turned out to be a woman holding a chicken. You could pet the chicken, but the woman warned you that it would probably peck you. Hard. Oh, and I think there may have been a couple of inert rabbits and, for some reason, a particularly annoyed looking poodle. I was somewhat disappointed.

Seeking to reverse our fortunes on Saturday morning we all packed up and went to a Easter egg hunt that was being put on at the local university. The main problem here, though, was that the temperature had plummeted to about 35 degrees. And we somehow forgot to bring Sam some gloves. Or a basket to carry her eggs in. As you can see from the pictures, Sam was miserable and teetering on the verge of icy tears every second we were there, but since we had come the whole way we wanted to at least stay for the hunt.

When they finally blew the whistle for Sam’s age group, she and about a hundred thousand other toddlers raced for the field like speculators at a land grab, minus the covered wagons and dysentery. I ran behind Sam, screaming at her to GO GO GET THE EGG! GET IT! GET IT! GET IIIIIITT! Because the sooner she got her eggs, the sooner we could leave. Terrified, Samantha tried to flee from me through the rioting mass of other children, pausing when she could to stoop and retrieve a plastic egg from its hiding place in the middle of plain sight. Since she had no basket and the best substitute we could find was a plastic sandwich bag, Sam would immediately turn and try to hand her eggs to the nearest adults, regardless of if they were me or not. So I chased behind her, snatching the eggs and cramming them into my various coat pockets. After about nine eggs Sam finally broke down and squatted in the middle of the chaos, bawling, hugging her knees, and screaming that she was cold and wanted to go back to the car. This was also the point where I started to feel really bad about the whole morning.

Meanwhile, Ger was off having an adventure of her own. Mandy had chosen this time to release one of the biggest bowel movements of her life from underneath her piles of protective blankets and buntings. Not wanting to change her in the freezing cold, Ger entered the nearest university building and started randomly trying doors, most of which were locked or led to rooms occupied with people presumably uninterested in the dilemma at hand. Unable to find a women’s restroom, Geralyn wheeled the stroller down a darkened hall until until she found a men’s restroom. Apparently the men’s bathrooms at a college aren’t as baby friendly as , say, those at an Applebee’s. So Ger had to change Mandy on the men’s room floor, hoping that no one would wander in. Except, of course, someone did. Fortunately the visitor just shrugged, did his business in the urinal a few feet away, and left.

Saturday afternoon, on the other hand, turned out much better. We had the grandparents and Ger’s godparents over to dye eggs, an activity that deeply fascinated and delighted Sam. After some preliminary experimentation with the little wire “egg plopper” tool, though, she decided to expedite the whole process by just dunking her hands into the cups of dye, which returned the colorful results one might expect.

Sam started Sunday morning with another egg hunt, but this one was inside the cozy confines of our house, where she could get by just wearing her pajamas and Curious George slippers. She enjoyed this one much more, to the point where she doggedly continued the hunt long after we told her flat out that she had found all the eggs.

And find them she did. Sam’s collection of candy made her Halloween haul look meiserly in comparison, mostly because people just kept giving her stuff. She got baskets from me and Ger, including delicious Peeps. She got a basket from Ger’s godparents. She got party favors full of candy from the family gathering on Sunday night, and from the egg dying party at her own house. She got candy from all the eggs she found. And then add on top of all that the fact that Mandy got baskets, too, and like everything else given to Mandy they became Sam’s de facto property. It got to the point that on Monday morning I took about two thirds of the candy with me to share with my co-workers. If Sam notices I’ll just tell her that the Easter Bunny took it back so that he could share it with starving children in China, where candy and brightly colored eggs are outlawed.

So yeah, it was a pretty good Easter on balance. Also, I think we went to church at some point in there. It’s hard to remember.