When it’s Easter Weekend.
Ah, Easter Weekend. A FOUR day weekend. A weekend, which until the last four and a bit years was mainly about eating long leisurely meals, lying in, sitting in pub beer gardens reading, and perhaps the odd job in the garden if we were in the mood.
Not any more. Now our Easter Weekends are a gaggle of family, hyper children, chocolate arguments, early mornings, chocolate krispie cakes and day trips to the coast. Don’t get me wrong, I think this year we had probably one of my most favourite Easters ever, but I can’t pretend that I didn’t feel a huge wanting to throw self on the floor and strop little bit of jealousy when Uncle John ate out probably every day, along with probably having an afternoon nap, and a leisurely walk.
However, that stuff doesn’t matter, because this year we got THE MAGIC (do I sound convinced?).
This year was the first year that I think The Beast really *got* Easter. Previously he’s obviously he liked the eggs and the “making” (baking), we’d not really talked about the Easter bunny, but there was no escaping it this year, he heard about it from his friends, from pre-school, and from our friends and family. So obviously, I took full advantage of this new obsession (a rabbit that will BRING YOU CHOCOLATE!), and did what every good mother should do. I used it as a bribe.
Therefore, the first half of our weekend consisted of abusing “The Bribe” AKA “The Easter Bunny Story” AKA “Mummy’s peace and quiet”.
We went to my sisters on Friday. We haven’t been for ages, and the last few times we’ve been bedtime hasn’t been as relaxing. Something to do with the set of drums in one room, the Hornby Model Railway in another and the lack of stair gate blocking the child in his room. We had tried a travel one previously, across the door, however he managed to head-butt the bottom out, crawl under it to go and play in one of his worshipped older cousins bedrooms.
This time, this wasn’t an issue. When I tucked him in, we had a little chat, I explained that the Easter Bunny was watching, and it was only two more sleeps until he decided whether to come or not, so he couldn’t get out of bed for anything other then a wee. We had two false wee alarms, then silence. Well, from that one anyway.
I knew I was on to something with the bribe, so on Saturday used it when it was time to leave my sisters house, time to get off the ride in the arcade, time to avoid the bouncy castle and time to get in the car to go home. When we got home he was tired, so we all lay on the sofa’s watching Toy Story, he wanted Spiderman, but I reminded him that The Bribe would be disappointed if he picked something that Fatty didn’t like as well.
Then came the stinker. Bedtime. He’d been hyper and excited, he knew it all happened tomorrow. So we had a serious chat. I explained that if both he and Fatty weren’t asleep by the time the Easter Bunny came to our house, he’d hop on past and give both their eggs to Heidi (one of his girlfriends). It was met with a very solemn face, before turning directly to his brother who was sucking his toothbrush and pulling the books off the bookshelf “YOU BETTER GO TO SLEEP LARRY OR NO CHOCOLATE FOR YOU AND THAT WILL MAKE ME SAD”.
Silence came quickly, and we opened a bottle of wine, cracked open a, er, spare Easter Egg, made the baskets up with all the chocolate and left it on the middle floor landing, like we did the stockings at Christmas. Then I sobbed my way through Senna before falling asleep.
7am, after a night of waking up to a sobbing in his sleep Fatty (teeth), I heard a wail “BUTT WHATTT ABOUTTTTT MEEEE??!!!” and “IT IS MORNING TIME ISN’T ITTT????” We tried to pretend we hadn’t heard, but then the Fat one woke up too. By the time we got up to The Beasts room his light was on, and he was ransacking his chest of drawers, sobbing hysterically.
“But…BUT…BUT I WAS A GOOD BOY…I WENT TO SLEEP, LAWREEENNCEEEEEEEE”. It took us a few minute to calm the sobs down and determine that he thought as the eggs weren’t in his room, the bunny had hopped on past and left them at Heidi’s house.
The rest of the day was a battle, he was grouchy, he wanted chocolate, and I think he was off colour, he claimed he wasn’t hungry, his cheeks were flushed and he was hot. But I put it down to over excitement. We made Krispie cakes in the morning to take to Nan and Grandads for dinner, and he held on tightly to the tin in the car almost all the way there. Almost being the key word in that sentence. He dropped them randomly, then we went around a couple of corners.
They were just salvageable if I placed them on the plate, so after dinner he carried them through proudly, just a few inches from putting them on the table he sneezed. All over them.
The Beast turned out to be not great for the next 24 hours. He had a high temp, was off his food, and was tearful and on a short fuse, I think he’d caught what I’d had a few days ago.
Because of this he’s still got loads of chocolate left and appears to have forgotten about it. I’m still deciding whether to do the best thing for him and eat it or myself, I think I’m willing to make that sacrifice.