The Case of the Easter Bunny

I admit it: I can’t wait until the days when the Easter Bunny no longer hops by our house. It’s not that I don’t like holidays, I just can’t take the pressure of having to be responsible for making them happen. And the trouble with children is that you can’t pull much over on them, especially when they seem to be on the elementary school track for pre-pre-law.

This is the story of one Easter Eve a few years ago. I lay in bed trying to fall asleep amid some low level tension because something just wasn’t quite right. Suddenly I bolted up, frightening my husband out of a sound snore.

“Oh crap!” I said, “I’ve got to do the Easter baskets!” I got up, turned on lights, rummaged through the guest room closet for baskets and candy, and set about making the sweetest little tokens of love from the Easter Bunny. I put them in the kids’ doorways and went back to bed, where the father of my children was sleeping just as peacefully as before my crisis.

In the morning the kids came to our room to show us their loot. My then six-year-old daughter looked up at me with genuine curiosity. “I wonder why the Easter Bunny gave us the same baskets as last year?”

Note: If you’ve been reading this column long, you already know that the Easter Bunny is a touch stingy. She doesn’t really see the point in buying new baskets year after year, and this was the year she decided to test her theory that the kids wouldn’t really notice anyway.

“Mom?” my daughter asked, “Are YOU the Easter Bunny?” Leave it to the little one.

I shook my head and offered up a little snort. “Do I look like I’ve been out all morning hopping around dropping off Easter baskets?”

She eyed me, weighing whether or not to push the matter. She was holding a bag of sugar after all. Finally, the little lawyer-in-training just wouldn’t let it go. “It’s just that you said the Easter Bunny was a girl AND the Easter Bunny knows what kind of books we like AND ----“
Maybe Mommy needed a basket full of Midol. I snapped. “I’m not the Easter Bunny. Okay?”

Everybody backed off the bunny.

When they asked later why the Easter Bunny didn’t give them very much candy this year, I told them maybe she knew they’d be getting a lot of candy at the Easter egg hunt that afternoon.

“Not that I would know,” I added. That was my fatal mistake. If this were a Grisham movie, there would be a close up on me as a bead of sweat made it’s way down my nose.

“Are you sure you’re not the Easter Bunny?” my son asked. His eyes narrowed. “Because usually when people say ‘not that I would know’ it means they know.”

It’s getting hard to come up with smart remarks, but not impossible.

“And usually when a kid asks too many questions about a basket of candy, it means they go to bed early and a monster comes in the night and eats all their candy.”

Case closed.


This is the After the Bubbly column that appears in the April issue of Peekaboo magazine. If you'd like to see it in your local parenting magazine, drop me a note. Thanks!