By Cassandra O'Leary
Kids. You can't make up some of the stuff they say and do. You can encourage their imagination and learning, but what happens next is often a surprise. Like the ubiquitous line about boxes of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get. If you wanted writing inspiration for a middle grade book, my house would be where it's at...wait, there's a thought! Mental note: write kids' book about imagination. I'll just add that to my list of approximately thousands of other books to write.
Anyway, with 9 and 7 year old boys in the house, Easter is an exciting time around here. For chocolate reasons. We're not a particularly religious family but we have been upholding the tradition of the Easter Bunny and a chocolate egg hunt around our house and backyard on Easter Sunday morning. As time marches on and kids start to grow up, some of the wild imagination becomes tempered with, if not reality, a healthy dose of scepticism and invention worthy of junior scientists.
My big boy is at an age where he suspects certain parental involvement in certain Easter hunt related activities. He is, however, a sweet mix of innocent and clever, working out that ruining Easter surprises for his little brother is probably going to impact his overall chocolate quota too.
"Do YOU hide the Easter eggs around the house?" Mr 9 asked me point blank on Easter Saturday afternoon.
Caught on the hop, I replied with a laughing, "That's classified."
Undeterred, he asked, "But is it you?"
"Noooo," I said carefully but truthfully. Because if a certain husband had been there, his answer may have been different.
On to Mr 7, who began explaining in elaborate, Technicolor detail the dream he had about how the Easter Bunny flies to different houses in a hovercraft type vehicle and then teleports into people's houses to deliver Easter eggs on some kind of purple cloud. Mr 9 and I blinked at each other, but agreed this sounded amazing. My little guy is future sci fi writer, perhaps. So proud.
He suddenly stopped talking, then burst out, "But we have a puppy now!"
Eyes wide, Mr 7 explained how he read the information from the vet about how dogs can't eat chocolate because it's poisonous to them (good reading, I must say).
"So we have to tell the Easter Bunny not to leave chocolate on the floor!"
So, I present Exhibit A: Letter to the Easter Bunny.
So began the technology and interactive part of the evening. Mr 7 is a smart little cookie and has learned a lot about apps and programming his iPad at school. Of course he decided to set up his iPad to take automatic time-lapse photos of his bedroom overnight, hoping to catch the Easter Bunny in action.
Cue my husband stealthily (not) sneaking around outside the kids' bedroom window at about 10 pm, trying to drop Easter eggs into their open window. While holding a bemused puppy on leash. While an annoyed cat jumped out of said window and escaped into the night. Then a little boy sat up in bed and waved to his Dad. Cheeky wide awake child alert! Dad slunk away, saying he was looking for the cat.
All of this was recounted to me in fits of whispers and giggles as I looked after the puppy, and husband went off to actually retrieve the cat. And to do a kind of puppet show with kids' stuffed animal toys dancing past the iPad camera in the bedroom. Since I'm also very mature, I helped by doing a dance for camera too. No, I'm not posting those pics.
The next morning, Mr 7 sadly informed me (at 6am when I was still in bed) that the Easter Bunny hadn't visited! I suggested he have a careful look around...
The Easter Bunny ended up delivering a nice basket on our front doorstop, and the kids WALKED RIGHT PAST IT in the morning. After they took the dog out for a little walk in the yard, I strongly suggested they take a tour of the outside of the house to see if maybe there were any Easter eggs they had missed.
And it all ended happily ever after, with much eating of chocolate and giggling at iPad footage.
THE END (until next Easter).
P.S. my chocolate themed short romcom read is a perfect post-Easter treat, minus the calories. Chocolate Truffle Kiss is only 99c or FREE in Kindle Unlimited! Note: this is a sexy romance, not a kids book.
P.S. my chocolate themed short romcom read is a perfect post-Easter treat, minus the calories. Chocolate Truffle Kiss is only 99c or FREE in Kindle Unlimited! Note: this is a sexy romance, not a kids book.
About Cassandra O'Leary
Cassandra O'Leary is a romance and women's fiction author, communications specialist, avid reader, film and TV fangirl and admirer of pretty, shiny things.In 2015, Cassandra won the We Heart New Talent contest run by Avon Books/HarperCollins UK. Her debut novel, Girl on a Plane, was published in July 2016. Cassandra was also a 2015 finalist in the Lone Star writing contest, Northwest Houston Romance Writers of America, and a 2014 finalist in the First Kiss contest, Romance Writers of Australia.
Cassandra is a mother of two gorgeous, high-energy mini ninjas and wife to a spunky superhero. Living in Melbourne, Australia, she's also travelled the world. If you want to send her to Italy or Spain on any food or wine tasting 'research' trips, that would be splendiferous.
Read more at cassandraolearyauthor.com
9 comments:
Aww, your boys sound wonderful! So inventive, and great job of Mr 7 for remembering about dogs and chocolate. I'm pretty sure Easter Bunny knew to be careful though because when our boys were little (they're now 27 & 24) and we had a dog, the chocolate eggs were never placed at dog level .
Love this post! Reminds me of that precious time between believing and not believing but wanting to believe with my own son and grands. I've two great grands who had a bountiful Easter this year but they live too far away for me to participate. Have your Easter eggs always been chocolate? Hard-boiled eggs were our staple and since we colored them as a family, we claimed hiding them. But then the Easter Bunny added candy eggs but chocolate eggs or even a chocolate bunny were super special and not very plentiful.
So true about chocolate and dogs and they just don't get it. We had a visiting dog one Christmas that got into the Christmas candy (fudge, rocky road, etc.) that was still wrapped and under the tree! And yes, she was sick but not deathly so...thankfully.Mr. 7 is certainly a responsible dog owner.
Hi Luanna, my boys are sweethearts but definitely keep me on my toes! We used to only have a cat running around and he wouldn't get into food in wrappers. The puppy is another thing altogether! Anyway a good time was had by all with no emergency vet visits.
Hi Judith, yes chocolate eggs are the thing here in Australia. Sometimes people decorate real eggs for fun but they don't usually use them in a hunt. We tend to have lots of the small foil wrapped eggs and just a couple of larger chocolate eggs or bunnies as treats. The boys are at such a fun age, but of course growing up all the time. I'm so glad they're taking care of their puppy too.
This was hilarious, Cassandra!!! I read it to my husband and we were both laughing so hard we could barely speak.
Fun post Cassandra! Brings back memories of when the kids were small. But my children fed off my need for them to believe in the magic of the Easter Bunny, no technology or slinking around. LOL
Hi Sarah, I'm glad my post made you laugh! I think I shpuld be taking notes of more of what the boys say...they are unintentionally hilarious. 😁
Hi Paty, I do like for my kids to use their imagination but the stuff with technology just blows my mind. I barely used a computer until I got to university LOL.
Enjoyed your post and peek into Easter with your 9 and 7 yr old. I miss those days when my grown kids were just kidless!!!
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