Downright Cute

That’s right, it was downright cute…from his wonder at the coloring process, to his excitement in the hunt, that forbidden word in my vocabulary kept surfacing again and again in my mind. Those of you parents of curious 2ish year olds have been there no doubt, but please bear with me in my reflection.

It had been a long night – two days worth of dishes were washed, the storage closet had been cleaned out and organized, the five baskets of trash had been burned, we had tried our best to shower off the stench of burning plastic and now, just about 2 hours past our normal bedtime, we slipped under our mosquito net for the night. “Well,” I thought out loud as we settled in, “tomorrow is Easter back at home. What kind of Easter traditions do you want to have as a family?” Now, such conversation starters are generally unproductive in our home after 9pm, but not this evening, despite our encroachment on the midnight oil, “Can we do an Easter egg hunt?” “Of course,” I responded, “and we should color the eggs first!” It was strange to hear us agree upon such a stereotypical holiday celebration as none of the other holidays seem to follow suit - no fireworks on the 4^th, no candy on Halloween, no turkey on Thanksgiving, and no tree, candy canes, Santa or presents on Christmas. Pretty lame, huh? Well, maybe we’re turning over a new leaf beginning with a good ole fashion Easter egg hunt.

And so, late Easter Sunday morning, we asked, “Hey Mickey, do you want to color some eggs?” To which he responded affirmatively despite not having a clue what we asked him. He climbed up onto the kitchen table chair and much to his enjoyment, he helped us from the very beginning as we prepared the red, blue, green and yellow dyes. All in all, he did very well and was allowed to participant in much of the dying process; he carefully placed each of the eggs in a cup of dye (well, carefully except the one that he threw in), he helped raise the tongs to check the coloring and he was very helpful in expressing his approval with spontaneous “wow”s when he saw a hue he liked. Very cute indeed. As we were finishing the last of our eggs, two Gmz men showed up at our door. Showing them the strangely colored eggs I said, “I think my chickens are sick, look at the eggs they laid, do you know of this type of sickness?” Their eyes widened, “Those are eggs? From a chicken?” Relieving them of further confusion, I told them the truth as best I understood it, “Our culture colors eggs and then has children hunt for them on Easter. When Jesus arose from the dead, he brought new life, right? Well, the egg represented new life as well, so I think that is why we do it” (forget about the fact that the life within these eggs had been boiled away only to be devoured later...insignificant details). Anyway, our Gmz friends thought that it was a good tradition, well at least to our faces. Back at home, I can’t help but think of them shaking their heads in disbelief at yet another crazy thing we foreigners do.

Crazy or not, Micah really loved it all, especially the culmination of the festivities later in the afternoon. And once again he did very well. Sure, I suppose we helped him a bit with the tougher ones, but he did find all seven colored eggs, not once but twice.

Each time he made us laugh with his own enjoyment of spotting one and upon collecting it, his consistent need to confirm that we didn’t forget its name, “egg.” Darn cute. And finally, the cherry on top was sitting down for the egg feast. Both Micah and I each had two! Mmmm.

So all in all, it was a nice Easter celebration and given the fun that we all had, it has great potential of being a tradition repeated next year. Turning over a new leaf on holidays? Quite possibly, for we’ve learned that experiencing holiday traditions, albeit stereotypically, has new appeal when we can experience them afresh through the wide eyes and infectious giggles of a curious toddler.