Easter

Easter is a funny holiday. The most holy day in the entire Christian Calendar is celebrated with baskets of chocolate delivered by a rabbit. It definitely tops the absurdity of Christmas. We had an extended Easter weekend this year. It began around 6:45am on Friday when the alarm went off so that we could get up and out to Dundas for the annual Easter Egg hunt. I honestly was not looking forward to it because I had been asleep for a grand total of maybe 3 hours at this point, but this year is the first one that Declan is able to run around for so I thought that I should go.

We also had the pleasure of the presence of Andrea’s cousin Jacob for the hunt and Declan adores him so that made it a bit more exciting. Once we arrived we went to the Caution Taped area for children up to 3 years old and Jake made his way over to the area for the kids his age. At the stroke of 8:00am we were off and running… well maybe not so much running, but Declan was picking up eggs in the immediate vicinity. Within 5 minutes were done. The various Stalkerazzi taking photos of their precious snowflakes in the cold Spring morning were furiously trying to get as many good shots as they could, while we just wanted the goods.

Once done we made our way over to Jake and found out that he had suffered an Easter tragedy. Against all good sense the organizing committee decided that his age group would climb a 100 foot 60 degree slope to get to their eggs. Jacob thought that his best option would be to get as high up as possible and get the harder to snatch eggs before everyone else. The problem was that once he got up there and filled his basket, he slipped and fell down. His eggs all fell out and he ripped his jacket. Poor kid… he looked miserable and I honestly think that he was crushed. We offered him some of Declan’s eggs because God knows the kid does not need them. He politely refused and just sulked. It was kinda heartbreaking.

Later that day he described his ordeal as the worst Easter ever to my parents. He had totally ignored the fact that he got more presents and candy from my folks and he knew that there would be more on Easter morning.

On an unrelated aside, I had a wonderful moment of discovery on Friday evening. We were headed to my parents for dinner and Jake was in the back with Declan. They were playing and singing together and Andrea looked over at me and said, “you know this is what it is going to be like in about 2 years.”. I looked over at her and smiled and said, “Funny, I was just thinking the exact same thing.”. It was a great feeling. Declan has a great model on how to be a big brother in Jake.