Bunny Needs To Have Her Head Examined

Here's the picture. Eleven fifty-five on the eve of Easter. I was about to make my cornbread for Easter dinner when I realized I didn't have any eggs. I had 36 of them but they were all hard boiled - oops! I looked through the ingredients and realized I needed a few more things, so I drove to the Time Sucking Black Hole that is Walmart. Before I left I told Max he needs to get some sleep 'cause I wanted him to be well rested for Easter dinner with Grandma. He, of course, said he would. One thing led to another and an hour and a half later I was leaving Walmart with more than a few things that were not on my list. I get home and guess who's still up? Everyone else is fast asleep and he's sitting there drinking a fully caffeinated Diet Coke. Wonderful. I proceeded to make my cornbread and do my last minute tasks which was pretty much everything because I am a bit of a procrastinator. I know, big surprise. Max was being very helpful. I kept telling him to go to sleep so he could be on his best behavior for Grandma, he kept putting it off. Finally around 2 am I told him I was going to bed thinking that if I go to bed he would fall asleep and I could get down to the business of Easter Bunnying. I checked my e-mail, watched a couple of TV shows, by now I am thoroughly exhausted but I am not going to ruin my child's Easter so I continued to wait him out. Finally, at 4 am - yes I said 4 am - the dog comes running upstairs which means Max finally let go of him when he fell asleep. I snuck downstairs, gathered all of the baskets and treats and hunkered down in the bathroom - cause I could lock the door - and proceeded make everything Easter Bunnyized. Half an hour later I have my fully packed baskets ready to hide. I went out to the front yard and hid the plastic Easter eggs. I creatively placed the baskets and just because I'm a glutton for punishment, made up more eggs and hid them in the back yard. The entire time I was thinking about how cool this would be if I were a kid. I finally slid my exhausted ass into bed around 5am. I went directly to sleep. At 7 am I hear Lex running through the house yelling "I know where every body's Easter baskets are"! He proceeded to wake everyone up and followed them around giving them very leading clue's to the whereabouts of their baskets. Surprise, surprise this began pissing them off because they wanted to find the baskets on their own. I, of course, was listening to all of this from my bed because I certainly hadn't actually gotten my ass up and out of it yet. I kept drifting in and out of a sleep. Suddenly a fierce argument about why Lex got the Ninja Gingerbread Man Wii game and Max got he stupid Penguin Wii game erupted. Max has always loved Penguins, but I guess the Easter Bunny should have known that he wanted the Ninja Gingerbread Man game instead. The fighting went on for the next hour until Lex finally gave in and said he would trade with Max. Problem solved - right? Wrong. The next time I came to, I was listening to Lex tell me that Max had gone outside and was cheating on the Easter egg hunt. I asked how does one cheat on an Easter egg hunt? He said Max was looking for all of the eggs so that when everyone went out he would already know where they are. I rolled over and went back to sleep. A few minutes later Max came up and said Dad was going to start the Easter egg hunt - whoa! When did dad start getting credit for the Easter Bunny duties?!? Needless to say, I was up for the day. I proceeded to go downstairs to watch them. Chip told the kids to go and find one egg each, come back, and then they could go out for another. Max decided that he was above the rules again and started taking all of the eggs. Eddie freaked, Lex started crying, I decided to go in the house because I had had enough egg hunting watching for a while. A few minutes later, Gus came in crying. He was trying to help get the eggs back and Max got mad at him. Total chaos. Eventually everyone calmed down. I kept asking why they thought that fighting over Easter eggs on Easter Sunday was an okay thing to do. Nobody seemed to understand that this was a problem. Eventually I got everyone dressed and ready for dinner at their Grandma's house. Believe it or not, they were very good for the time we were there. Which is cool 'cause if they weren't, this story would be even longer. I mentioned the fact that I had hid Easter eggs on the front lawn too, right? Well, when we got home Max decided to pick up all of those eggs before anyone else had the chance causing yet another fight. My point with this whole long and drawn out story - besides the fact that Max needs more sleep - is that even though I try to make things perfect for my kids and they may not appreciate the things that I do, I know that eventually they will see that I tried my best and hope that it was good enough to leave them with memories that they will want to recreate with their own kids. Sometimes it is easier to just give up and not bother trying to keep them believing in childhood fantasies, but then I would have gotten plenty of sleep and wouldn't have had anything to write about! Kids are not the easiest things in the world to figure out but I am willing to sacrifice a little sleep to try to preserve a little innocence if only for a few fleeting moments in time.