Kids and Easter
Have I lost my mind? (If you really love me you will consider that question a purely rhetorical one.) Why the heck do I make the same mistake and load my kids up with sugar every blasted Easter? About a week before, I go to Target (with all the best and innocent of intentions)to get enough supplies to fill 5 Easter baskets. "I'll go easy on the sugar this time," I tell myself as drool pools in the corners of my mouth. I linger in front of the Snickers Eggs, the Milky Way eggs, the chocolate truffles, the chocolate eggs filled with mini M and M's, the malted milk eggs, the Reeses Peanut Butter Eggs...O' Saints preserve us I feel my thighs expanding by the second. Nevertheless, I scoop several bags of each and place them in my cart. "I've got to get them stuff I can't stand," I think, "so I won't be tempted to raid their baskets for the next two weeks." What self-discipline. What prudent planning. So I head for the marshmallow aisle where sickening brightly colored Peeps are stacked two stories high. Yellow ducks. Pink bunnies. Blue bunnies (someone was on drugs when they came up with that one.) Purple ducks. All disgusting enough to satisfy me and my kids. Peeps, breakfast of champions. I load up because these also take up alot of basket real estate. Oh-oh. Those cute little chocolate covered bunnies are staring at me with those evil eyes sending subliminal "eat me, eat me, eat me or die" messages. I want to live, so I gather up ten boxes and toss them in my cart. Better head for the toy aisle. Big toys. Basket fillers. Candy replacers. Sadly, the Easter toys really sucked this year. Those "magic" drawing pads with the plastic covers that rip day one. Parachuting bunnies that tangle in the least little clear air turbulence. Chalk eggs so they can scribble all over the furniture. Hmmm. Let's check out the giant bunnies made of chocolate. I can't exactly sneak that from their baskets and it DOES take up lots of precious space. Yep, the solid ones. In the go. What about a stuffed animal? Those are really huge! But the ones i like are too big to fit into the basket, so they'll have to be doled out alongside instead. My purpose defeated. How sad. Still need some filller. But I'm exhausted and--thank you very much--starving to death, so I load up with Butterfingers, Laffy Taffy, Kisses and, well, hell, I lost count. Half crazed from chocolate fumes. I leave with 349 bucks worth of stuff that'll take 1256 hours at the gym to get rid of. The sad thing is that my kids will be so excited to find there baskets, only to pick through a couple of pieces after which the things sit for months. Moldy jelly beans and lint covered malted eggs. That would be sooo tragic. I have to save the poor little innocent candies the only way I know how. Can you say elephant thighs?