Celebrating Fertility Symbols and Sugar Rushes

So Easter might have snuck up on me a little.

Yes, there have been aisles of sickly pastel in Target for the past month and a half. Yes there might have been one or two HUNDRED different "baskets" - including one made out of Elmo's head that I'll tell you right now will be worth at least $5000 in therapy when some poor kid stops suppressing that particular memory. Yes there were stacks of bunny and chickie related books with a large display of "special store brand" rabbits right at check out. But I still found myself last Friday going, "wait, Easter? That Easter?? THIS Sunday???"

So I found myself in the pushing, elbowing crowd with all the other parents who celebrate various holidays by following the sacred traditions of procrastination and panic. I did hear one mother, nearly in tears, desperately asking someone where. the. damn. plastic. eggs. were. I smiled at her in sympathy and neatly snagged the last bag of Reese's eggs by reaching between two grandmother types and over the woman who was sitting on the floor painstakingly comparing the attractions of Starburst jelly beans vs. Brachs. I don't bother with that sort of care and bother. I just make sure I have enough tooth-rotting sucrose to make a decent show but not so much that I would have to spend more than two hours packaging it.

Because we have this tradition at our house.

So this year's hiding places included:

Buried in the sugar bin
Taped to the underside of the clunky old television
Nestled inside the second of the Russian Dictator Stacking Dolls (Breshnev)
Stuck to the corner of the ceiling behind the sofit
Stuffed down the center of the paper towels (which Child 3 dislodged by giving the roll a violent whip, sending the small packet of jelly beans whizzing past Child 1's ear and adding to Child's complicated relationship with flying beans)

and

slid into the battery compartment of the largest flashlight.

By the time we were on these the Children were pathetically begging for a hint so I told them finding this one would be "illuminating."

Child 2 shrieked "LIGHTBULB!!!" sounding a little like a hysterical chicken.

Naturally we shouted Lightbulb! at each other at random moments for the rest of the day.

Oh, and we never did find one wad of jelly beans. That's traditional too.