Audrey's Second Easter

I had high hopes for Easter this year. And I got the shaft.

Since Audrey is almost 3 now, I had planned on building up the whole Easter Bunny myth much like I did for Santa and the Elf on a Shelf that my sister bought for us the year before. It was a hit. The premise of the Elf on a Shelf is that you get the doll, and when the kids aren't around you put it up on a shelf or hanging from a picture frame. Then, when the kids see it, you explain that Santa sent this helper down to watch and make sure that they're being nice and not naughty. Sort of like being audited, or having Santa send in a Pinkerton to keep tabs on his investment. Either way, it should make Santa look like a dick, and support a climate of fear and paranoia amongst the children, but for some reason it has the opposite effect. Audrey loves the hell out of him. Each night when she goes to bed, I'd pluck him off of whatever cubbord knob, door frame or plant hook and put him somewhere new. Just to freak her out, I would move him while she was still up and watching television. She'd scream with delight when she saw that she had just missed seeing him move. A couple times I'd sneak into her room when she's sleeping and hang him up on a curtain rod. You'd hear her yell and clap when she woke up in the middle of the night and saw him there.

So, with that being such a success, I gave the bunny a shot. I took my sister and brother in law's idea of putting bunny tracks around the house and Audrey could follow them and find the baskets. They gave me a template and told me to use flower. Once the kids were asleep, and the cats were securely locked in the basement, I set to work laying down the tracks and sprinkling them with flower. Not as easy as you'd think. It's not like the stuff just spreads out nicely- it clumps together so you wind up pouring a ton on with the result being a bunny foot shaped iceberg, or albino pyramid. After a while I caught on to the idea of using a basting brush to get a thinner layer.

Since I couldn't put the tracks down on our hardwood floors (which is a huge percentage of our house), I just kept the tracks confined to the porch carpet which made Erin happy since she wasn't a fan of the potential mess. You can see the result here.

When Audrey woke up, I stumbled out of bed, scooped up the video camera and followed her down the hall and through the kitchen into what I thought would be a Hallmark commercial. At first she stood in the middle of the tracks and looked blankly around. Then she asked what they were. "Easter bunny tracks" I said cheerily, expecting her eyes to light up. Then she looked around some more and said, "Where's the bunny?"
"He's gone- He went back to Hopkins." That's right. I told her the Bunny was from Hopkins, MN. I wanted to change up the whole Easter Bunny story.
"Don't I follow the bunny to find the baskets?" She asked, looking at me innocently.
"No. NO! You're supposed to follow the bunny tracks to the baskets." I said. "So go ahead, follow the tracks. They start at the sliding glass door."

She wandered over cautiously. After a moment of stooping over one of the thickest prints, she said, "The tracks look like pancake mix."
I grimaced for a moment before muttering, "Not pancake mix- magic dust. Just look for your baskets." Eventually she found them and wasn't into it. There were only two baskets, one for Margo who was sleeping at the time, and one for Audrey. She apparently expected more. After that she tip-toed disgustedly over my tracks and sat on the couch where she demanded to watch Spongebob Squarepants. Amazing. After taking some pictures I vacuumed it up and resolved to somehow make it 'better' next year.

Later, when Erin's parents came over, they planted 20 of those plastic eggs with treats inside them. It was all over the house. Audrey woke up from her nap and was giddy as she looked for each one and placed them in her basket. Really, squealing like a pig with each new egg found under a pillow or chair. Clearly, Erin's parents had years of this under their belt, so they had the upper-hand. Defeated I sat down on the couch and began reading through an issue of People magazine that my mom had dropped off. Erin's mom told me how she had seen the video of Audrey looking for her baskets. "And I saw those tracks..." she added, trailing off.
"Oh yeah, what did you think?"
"Looks pretty messy."
"It's just flower, it vaccumed up pretty easily." I said.
After a moment she added,"you over-did it a little."