Fending Off The Easter Bunny!

Another Easter has come and gone.
That damned Easter grass is still popping up in strange places.
I tried buying the edible kind this year, to get rid of it quicker, but it tasted terrible.
My son scarfed down all the candy in his basket the first week, while my daughter's candy is still hanging in there...dawdling...moving at that same leisurely pace that she has perfected through a lifetime of practice.
I don't really mind.
In fact, it put me in the mood to post a story I wrote about Easter from last year.


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Prepping the house for Easter, Lucy decided that the bunny she drew was the perfect present for the Easter Bunny.
So she settled down and wrote a little note on the page for him and propped it up against my purse.
Stepping back to admire the effect, she said, "I think the Easter Bunny will be really proud of me, Mommy, for thinking of this. I'll bet nobody ever made him a present before. Why should Santa always get stuff us and not that poor, nice little bunny?"
"I don't know, honey," I said, "But I'm sure you're right. That was a really sweet idea."
She beamed at me.
Lucy and I discussed what the Easter Bunny must look like again. Last week she decided that all the bunnies at the stores were imposters because the real Easter Bunny looks like a real bunny.
Their dad says the Easter Bunny is a 6 foot tall invisible rabbit named Harvey.
I say Lucy is probably right - I always imagine The Bunny being like one of the rabbits from Watership Down, but I can't quite figure out if he uses only his teeth to carry things, or if he can walk on his hind legs and use his paws like hands.
Stuart piped up, "Nobody really knows what the Easter Bunny looks like - even Scientists don't know, right, Mom?"
"Yeah," I said, keeping my face perfectly straight with an effort. "I suppose not."
It's one of those charades that always makes me feel midly guilty, but the kids have so much fun with it.
Until tonight...
The kids brushed their teeth.
I read them stories about Easter.
I gave Stuart Benny's Bunny to read to me, but he said that was too easy and then proudly read me the book we have from the movie HOP. Only missed three words.
Lucy read a book about a bunny who painted eggs.
Then I kissed her goodnight and went to Stuart's room to say prayers with him like we do every night.
Lucy called from her room, "Momma, I'm going to sneak out of my room tonight and look downstairs to see if I can see that Easter Bunny!"
Stuart called back, "Don't do it, Lucy! You don't know what he might look like!"
He looked over at me, his hazel eyes widening, and added in a whisper, "Right, Mom? 'Cause no one knows what he looks like... He might be ugly...or scary... or maybe if you go downstairs when you're not supposed to and you see him - maybe he's got a really nice bunny face, but then when he sees you're looking at him, his face spins around and he's got a really scary torn up face!"

Next thing I know, the kid was whimpering and begging me not to leave him.
He was so desperate, he beged for his half-sister Justine to come up and stay with him until he went to sleep.
Marvelling at the difference in imagination between my two children, I ran downstairs and put some carrots out in front of Lucy's drawing, snapped a picture of it, and then ran upstairs to show it to him. "Look. See? We left him some carrots. He'll be so happy about it! Stuart, you're fine. It's going to be fine. The Easter Bunny can't be scary - think of all the nice things he gets you."
Stuart: "Mom, you can't tell if someone is good or bad just because they give you candy, or because of how they look."
That stumped me.
I mean, damn, he was absolutely right.
What kind of crap were we teaching him here?!

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This year, the Easter Bunny Myth hung on good and strong in their dedicated little souls. They left a bowl of water, some carrots, and some beautiful little cards. I have no idea if I still believed in the Easter Bunny by the time I was in the third grade, so I have little to refer back upon. This leaves me mildy worried about the situation, but mostly I feel glad. How nice to think that they get to be children a little longer. How wonderful that their imaginations are so strong. It will make storytellers out of them, and storytellers are my favorite kinds of people.