As Easter quickly approaches, I am reminded of a time not too long ago when my son took his first steps toward becoming a man… He cheated at Easter.
It all started around 5:00 am on that fateful morning. The “Easter Bunny” had just hidden a basket full of colored eggs all over the house. This happens every year and the children look forward to getting up in the morning and hunting them down.
They are very competitive, my children. I have seen them cleverly disorient when they see an egg and a brother or sister stands between them and their prize. It is absolutely fun to watch.
My son, the youngest of four, never finds as many eggs as the rest and he really seems to be taking it personally. It doesn’t help when his older sister, who is EXTREMELY competitive, dances around her, taunting him with her basket full of brightly colored eggs, laughing at how miserable my son has made him. He is terribly sad actually, but what’s a mother to do?
Anyway, it’s around five in the morning and I hear a little tapping of feet. I listen carefully for a while and hear these footsteps all over the house. I sneak to the bedroom door, very carefully, just in case he’s a very skinny, fleet-footed thief, and what do I see?
My son! He is running around looking for all the eggs! He doesn’t pick them up or anything; he’s just plotting in his head where everyone is hiding.
He continues his search for a few moments and then hurries back to bed. I almost peed myself from laughing so hard. He knew exactly what my little man was doing and couldn’t have been more proud.
To win in this incredibly unfair and often unfair life, you have to do whatever it takes, and if you’re disadvantaged by size or strength, that would certainly include cheating. I know that sounds horrible, but you have to admit, that was very smart of him!
This is how it developed. My son goes to bed for a while and around six he jumps out of bed very excited, waking everyone up. He runs around all surprised and all, “Look at the Easter baskets,” he yells, “and the eggs we left out are gone, the Easter Bunny must have hidden them!”
It was a wonderful performance, really; worthy of an academy award.
So they go looking for eggs and my son is really hoarding them. You should have seen my daughter, she was crazy. She could barely contain her laughter and my husband, at the time, was looking at me as if he had lost his mind or something, so I told her what he had witnessed earlier.
My ex was a pretty uptight guy and I don’t think he approved of my son’s behavior and he gave me one of those looks like this was my doing. Every time the kids do something wrong, it’s always my fault.
“That’s the Madson in them,” he’d say, “They certainly didn’t learn that kind of behavior from me!” Of course they didn’t make you a boring little excuse for a man…sorry, I got a bit off track.
However, the story does not end there. His words about my influence resonated even louder that afternoon at my father’s house where we gather every year for Easter dinner. We eat well, then chat for a bit as we digest the food, and then the older boy, who doesn’t believe in the Easter Bunny anymore, gets stuck hiding eggs in the yard for all the little boys.
Now, you have to understand here that these eggs are not real eggs like the ones we hide in my house in the morning, but they are plastic and have all kinds of goodies inside. I am a huge fan of candy and simply by association law, I get half of all the loot from my kids.
Unfortunately, that was the year that one of my daughters joined the ranks of the unbelievers and was disqualified from the hunt. This really pissed me off because now I only had two little ones out there looking for my treats and as I mentioned, my son was really pretty mean unless he cheated.
Desperate times call for desperate measures and when the gun rang to begin the hunt I found myself giving my children secret hand signals as to where the eggs were hidden. It’s not horrible? My brother-in-law saw me doing it too, only his son can’t walk yet, so he had nothing to gain by ratting me out (although he later blackmailed me for a Snickers bar).
I don’t feel bad or anything about how it all played out. My stomach was a little sore from all the chocolate I ate, but it was worth it and the pain was soon gone. I certainly didn’t lose any sleep over the matter.
Of course, my ex found out later and I got another one of those looks, but as I saw it, I kept my eyes on chocolate until at least my birthday and you have to admit that’s the best definition of conquering a woman with an addiction. to the goodies could wait!
