My oldest child is 10 and I am definitely reaching the point where I am getting tired of trying to sustain the make believe of tooth fairies, Easter Bunnies and Santa. In fact, I have been known to mention about how much we paid for something so they better darn well treat it better, when oops that item was supposed to have come from Santa.
The greedy little buggers that they are can’t even remember what presents Nana bought never mind Santa.
Yet I had an out this morning and did I take it, no. I bent over backwards to keep the belief alive. What with us all having the flu twice in three weeks and being off work with the kids on spring break, I had been behind in my Easter preparations. So I ran off with SIL late yesterday afternoon for a quick dash to the drugstore to find something for my kids.
Fail #1 – I failed to check where our Easter baskets were. Last year I instituted the “put our baskets out” for the Easter bunny and naïve little buggies they are they immediately believed that’s what we’ve always done. However, I forgot that my kids continued to play with their baskets periodically through out the year despite the fact that I had them stored in the garage. I found one basket.
Fail #2 – I naively decided that we could do without the Easter egg hunt this year since we had company visiting and would be attending church first thing in the morning.
Fail #3 – I forgot to colour Easter eggs with the kids. I FORGOT to colour eggs with the kids. FIRST time ever!
Fail #4 – I failed to fully wake up and properly come up with a good story as to why we wouldn’t be having an Easter egg hunt that morning when that was literally the first thing they said to us was how they couldn’t wait to get dressed and go. Crap!
Fail #5 – I told the kids that mom and dad hide the eggs but insisting that the furry rabbit did indeed deliver the non basketed puny pile of goodies sitting on the table. Which led to a complete melt down and surprisingly quick mental jump to the Easter bunny is not real. BIG CRAP! Husband was not pleased with me.
After some talking and discussion and assertions that the Easter bunny is real and that if they don’t believe in him anymore that he wouldn’t be able to bring them candy next year to hey well we didn’t do an egg hunt in the backyard but maybe he did one in the front yard and we can check after we come back from church. That immediately restored their belief in the Easter bunny to my great surprise and relief.
We went to church and stopped at the grocery store on the way home under the guise of buying bacon for Easter Brunch (cause I forgot about that too) and searching frantically through the grocery store looking for pre-filled candy eggs. I had the clerk double bag the goodies to further cover from prying eyes the bright foil covered eggs and held an orchid in my other hand (for my mother) as a distraction from the bag and whatever non-bacon shapes they might discern.
When we got home my husband snuck the back gate key so he could go out the front door and sneak into the backyard while I allowed my kids to go hunting through the garage looking for the missing Easter baskets. Mission accomplished, we eat lunch and head outside to see if the Easter Bunny did indeed show up.
Only it’s one of the warmest days we’ve had in weeks and the chocolate eggs melted. F#&@. Melted chocolate or not the kids are happy and so we’re off the hook for another year. Plus considering all that went on this morning, our sneaky little maneuvering actually convinced them even more firmly that he’s real.
Which just goes to show kids are dumb.. okay extremely naïve.
Please make me feel better and share with me one of your “almost blowing the story” parenting fails or you can lord it over me in the comments how you’ve never almost blown it.
Zeemaid
Oh, man, that was some rough times. Then you hear about these amazing crazy feats other parents do and you snidely call them overachieving jerks. Or is that just me.
ReplyDeleteMy Fails always do with the Tooth Fairy. By the time everyone is asleep, my head is on schoolwork and housework and making lunches and whatever else needs to be done. Then first thing in the morning I have some child crying that the Tooth Fairy didn't come and then I have to orchestrate a huge lie/plan and be stealth like a ninja.
Oh, man, that was some rough times. Then you hear about these amazing crazy feats other parents do and you snidely call them overachieving jerks. Or is that just me.
ReplyDeleteMy Fails always do with the Tooth Fairy. By the time everyone is asleep, my head is on schoolwork and housework and making lunches and whatever else needs to be done. Then first thing in the morning I have some child crying that the Tooth Fairy didn't come and then I have to orchestrate a huge lie/plan and be stealth like a ninja.