Family Snippets - 26. Easter

The door to the boys bedroom opened and a small head peered through the gap.

“Easter today! Easter today!” Andrew proclaimed happily.

I rolled over and looked at the clock. At least 7:30am was better that 4am, which is when Colin had snuck into our room to ask if it was time to check for Easter eggs. Janine had told him no, and told him to go back to bed. I pretended to be asleep – there had been no point in alerting Colin to the possibility that he might have a second chance at being given permission to go looking for Easter eggs.

Andrew came in and climbed onto our bed.

“Hello, Daddy! It’s Easter today!”

“Hello, Andrew,” I muttered, still struggling to wake up.

“Why don’t you go wake up Colin?” Janine suggested. “Then we can go check to see if the Easter Bunny has been.”

“Good idea, Mummy!”

That gave me the necessary couple of minutes to wake up properly. I was out of bed when the two boys left their bedroom and headed for the lounge room.

“Wait!” I called out as I remembered something.

“What’s wrong?” Janine asked me, looking concerned.

“I need to get the video camera,” I explained. The night before, Colin had been asking about videos of past Easters, which was a subtle hint that I’d better video this one so he’d have something to watch next year.

“Oh,” Janine said, rolling her eyes.

I got the camera out and followed Andrew into the lounge room. Colin was already there.

“Look! The Easter Bunny has been!” Colin cried, a grin stretching from one side of his face to the other.

While Andrew went up to work out which were his eggs, Colin reached around the back and lifted up some green stalks.

“He’s eaten all his carrots and he’s drunk his milk!”

I grunted. I’d spent a week suggesting that the Easter Bunny might like white chocolate carrots, instead of the traditional orange ones, but I’d been overruled.

Janine took charge and quickly sorted out whose was whose. Andrew wasn’t shy – he started ripping the foil off his giant Kinder Surprise Easter Egg immediately. Colin proceeded in a more sedate manner, but it wasn’t long before both of them had the large egg out. Andrew was lucky – his egg was already cracked so he no problem getting the surprise inside out. Colin was about to smash his egg into the carpet when Janine stopped him.

“NO!”

Colin looked up at her, his lower lip starting to quiver.

“It’s okay, Colin. Just don’t smash the egg into the carpet, that’s all. Would you like me to open it up for you?”

He nodded and handed over the egg. Janine carefully broke it and handed it back. That was my cue to turn off the camera as I would need to participate in the next step – putting the surprises together.

Janine had decreed a long time ago that it was not her job to put the contents of a Kinder Surprise together. Since I like puzzles, I didn’t mind. A few minutes later, I had a small sailing boat together and handed to Colin. Andrew’s surprise had contained a small model car that included a friction motor. I was miffed that Janine had taken it on herself to complete it – stepping over the line of household responsibilities, but since it was a special occasion, I let her get away with it.

Things proceeded in a more traditional manner after that. The boys failed to eat much breakfast, having overdosed on chocolate. Janine and I just relaxed with a cup of coffee while we munched down on left over hot cross buns and a pair of small chocolate bunnies. The boys started playing with their new toys.

“Daddy! Andrew’s car has just smashed into my boat and broken it!”