Easter, Part 3

. . . In which everyone hunts for eggs in the soggy yard.

Our final stop on Easter was at my dad's parents' house. This is the highlight of the Easter festivities because of the grand scale Easter Egg Hunt. The picture below shows nearly all of my grandparents' grandchildren and great grandchildren. My two cousins from Kansas City were the only ones absent. This picture does not include the spouses or significant others. Every year we all gather in that space between my grandparents' house and garage and wait, with plastic shopping bags in hand, for the taking of the pictures. At long last, someone will say, "Go!" and the masses descend upon the backyard in a mad hunt for eggs.

To make sure all's fair in love and egg hunting, the eggs are labeled with each person's name. The difficulty level of the hiding places is determined by the finder's age. After years and years of egg hunting, we pretty much know where to look. Finding eggs isn't too difficult, but finding all of your own eggs can be a challenge. Since I'm married and have a child, I don't get my own eggs any more, but Harper had three to find this year.

Just like Easter morning, Harper had lots of people shouting and pointing, which made her eggs easy for her to find. After giving each egg a good shake, she'd march right over and put them in the bag I was holding for her.

Being the determined little one that she is, Harper didn't really accept the fact that she'd found all her eggs. She wanted to keep looking. I worried she wouldn't quite comprehend the part about the eggs having names on them, and want to collect eggs that didn't belong to her. So I did what any thinking mother would do. I pulled one of her plastic eggs out of the grocery bag, threw it toward the middle of the yard and yelled, "Look, Harper! There's another egg for you." And she would dutifully trot after it, pick it up, and bring it to me to bag, each time with as much enthusiasm as when she found the first egg. After a minute I realized that I was actually playing fetch with my daughter!

Once all the eggs have been found, including Harper's three which had each been found about eighteen times, we head back inside the house for the next part of the egg hunting process. Immediately upon reentering the house, each child finds the Ziploc bag with his or her name on it, empties the contents of his or her plastic eggs into the bag, and promptly returns the empty eggs to the bag Grandpa has on the kitchen table. The eggs will be carefully stored until next Easter. Lord help you if you don't return your plastic eggs, you will be hunted down and, frankly, I don't want to know what would happen next.

I would like to add this family trivia fact: In modern times, we hunt for colorful plastic eggs, the kind you can buy 5 for $1 at the grocery or drug store. When I was a child, the eggs we hunted were the type that pantyhose came in. Which is why it was originally a big deal to return the eggs, because they stopped putting pantyhose in plastic eggs and started putting them in cardboard containers shaped like eggs. While fine for packaging pantyhose, they made lousy containers to hid candy and loose change in.

Loose change? You ask. Yes, loose change. Every year, when each grandchild or great grandchild takes inventory of his or her egg contents, he or she finds assorted candy treats and $1.25 in small change. Making sure each person has his/her $1.25, split among the eggs he/she has to find, is a job my grandmother takes very seriously. I have a sneaking suspicion that Easter preparations begin around February 15 in my grandparents' house! I would like to point out that they have accounted for inflation over the years. I can remember when the loose change only added up to $.85.

On top of all the Easter excitement, Harper provided a little extra entertainment. On the suggestion of one of his sisters, my father bought Harper some "squeaky shoes" on a business trip to China. He gave them to us a while ago, but they were too big and Harper wasn't walking yet. Now they fit her just fine. They are literally shoes will little squeakers in the heels, like you'd hear in a dog's chew toy. They "eek" with each step Harper takes. This makes her either cuter or more annoying, depending on your perspective. Shoes like this would be a preschool teacher's nightmare.

Harper was a social butterfly all day long, enjoying the company of all my cousins. And when we finally settled into the car for the ride home, she passed the time by playing with the hole in her tights. Whatever makes you happy. . .