Easter Egg Hunting

Rachel’s friend Elijah invited her to attend an Easter Egg Hunt hosted by the Maadi Community Church this morning (thanks, Schaefers!). She ended up having a good time after she realized what was going on. Yesterday I tried to brief her on what was going to happen but it didn’t go over very well.

“Tomorrow we’re going to hunt Easter eggs with Elijah!”

“Hunt Easter eggs?”

“Yeah. People are going to hide some eggs for you to find!”

“Why?” she asked, thoroughly confused.

“Because…ummmm…it’s tradition.”

“Tradition?”

“Yeah, I don’t know why. But there will be candy in the eggs so it will be fun.”

“Candy in the eggs?”

“Yeah. But don’t worry the eggs aren’t real. They’re plastic.”

“Why?”

“Ummmm…”

That part of the conversation didn’t go over very well. She was never satisfied with any answer about why grownups would be silly enough to hide eggs. Even “because it’s fun” couldn’t pacify her curiosity so I switched topics a bit to discuss why eggs are so special around Easter time. She understood that a bit better.

“What usually comes out of eggs?”

“Eggs.”

“Okay…but how about what kind of baby animal comes from eggs?”

“Baby chicks!”

“Yes, and are baby chicks old or new?”

“New.”

“Yes, Easter eggs represent new life. Tell me, how did Jesus die?”

“Onto a cross.”

“Yes, and then where did they put him?”

“Into a tomb.”

“Okay, but then what happened?”

“He got resurrected.”

“Right. So, a baby chick breaking out of the egg is symbolic of Jesus rising from the tomb, conquering death, and giving us new life.”

“Oh. But what about the candy?”

So perhaps that part of the conversation didn’t go over so well, either, but the Easter Egg hunt today was fun, anyway. Rachel and Elijah were both in the 4 and under group and they raced onto the lawn with the other kids where they all stood dumbly around while parents coaxed them to look for eggs. After a few minutes the kids started getting into it, but Rachel didn’t really get excited until she had found an egg that had broken open, revealing the sweets inside.

She looked up at me like “You weren’t kidding?!” and ran off to find some more eggs, her enthusiasm multiplied tenfold.. Each child was allowed to find twelve eggs.

After Rachel had found her share of the eggs we went over to a table to empty her candy into a brown paper bag so that we could return the plastic eggs to be used again next year. Inside one of her eggs was a special ticket—she’d won a big Easter basket. Elijah won one as well, lucky kids! Rachel chose a basket with stuffed animals and Elijah chose a basket with toy cars.

They were both pretty pleased with their loot.

We had to leave shortly after the hunt at the request of Daddy, who wanted to work on his thesis. We played with Rachel’s new toys and read some stories before settling in for a three hour nap (no kidding).

There was a karaoke/dance party across the street last night that lasted until around 4:00 AM. The music wasn’t even the worst part—one of our disgruntled neighbours went out into the street and started screaming at the partiers…for hours.

“I want to go to bed!” she shrieked. “You’re not the only people who live on the block! Turn your music down!”

She carried on until the party stopped. Which didn’t happen for several hours. At least the music, though loud, was rhythmic enough that we had half a chance of being lulled to sleep by the pulsing of our eardrums. We couldn’t sleep through our banshee of a neighbour, though, whose cries jolted us from our half-sleep time and again.

Naptime had never been so welcome.

And while we slept, Andrew wrote almost 2000 words. Hurrah!