We were ill-prepared for Easter. I blame the carnival. I told you it was trouble. Or did I? Well, it is. You get sucked in by the rides and the candy and the sparkling lights... all contributing to an atmosphere that whispers, "Why ever would you want to go home? Stay... stay... stay..."
So we stayed. And it was freezing. This was Friday night. We hit every ride that Pants's height would allow, being sure that every other one was the Super Slide, mind you. Hell, we even rode the Special Bus.
The only thing we didn't do was the games, however we did stop by the "Win a Bunny Rabbit" stall for old times' sake. Let me tell you, folks, this is one game you do not want to win. Last year, we watched a group of teenagers eagerly try to win a rabbit by throwing a ping pong ball into some kind of water contraption. This is not a game that is designed for you to win either, by the way, which is evident by the heaping basket of balls you get to try your luck with. You don't stand a chance.
Nevertheless, these kids gave it their all and before you knew it, one of the guys won a rabbit. Their enthusiastic faces quickly turned to bewildered surprise, however, when the indifferent carnie reached down, grabbed a rabbit by the scruff of its neck, and shoved it into the kid's nowhere-near-outstretched arms... then proceeded to walk away. You win-- now scram.
No carrier. No basket. No box with a scrap of carrot. And certainly no instructions. One second you are a carefree 16 year old bachelor, the next you are the proud (if not slightly stunned) parent of a scrawny rabbit. Best o' luck figuring out how to get that home without filling your backseat with rabbit pellets.
Where is PETA when you need them?
As you can imagine, Saturday we were slow-going after our wild night out on the town. I mean, dude, we didn't go to bed until after 10pm! We are just that crazy. So when it came time to start the egg-dyeing preparations, we just didn't have it in us. For the first time in years, no one wanted to dye eggs. Maybe it was residual cotton candy effects, but the carnival still had its hooks in us. Given the choice between a bunch of hot vinegar and egg dye or another go at the Super Slide, you can guess where Pants's favor fell.
So instead of spending Saturday afternoon preparing our Easter baskets and making sure we had cute and fluffy Easter outfits for the next morning, we hauled ourselves back to the carnival with nary a care in the world. Once again, we froze our butts off while Pants defended his crown as King of the Super Slide, and we were happy to do it.
Of course, all of our carefree carnival going did not stop Easter from coming. Nope, that hippity hoppity bunny arrived just as scheduled... and I found that I was not in the least bit prepared. No cute Easter baskets. Certainly no cute Easter outfits. And no time.
I actually tried to convince Al that Pants could wear an old jumper that his mother had made Al when he was little. You know, one of those little john-john jumpers with the cute appliques. Unfortunately, I quickly realized that aside from a sleeveless jumper being inappropriate in such cold weather, I was apparently one size and at least a couple of decades off from that thing working. So we improvise.
As I told Sara of Suburban Oblivion, you can't always be Martha Stewart. Sometimes you have to make do with Jenny McCarthy.
No cute Easter eggs this year... How do plastic dinosaur eggs sound? 
No cute Easter outfits... How 'bout an Easter bib? Good? Great! Oh, and for Pants's outfit, I felt confident that convertible cars on a Hawaiian shirt just shouted "It's Springtime!" Either that or "It's Miller time!" But like I said, you improvise.
By the way, while holding Cheeks tonight and waiting for him to wind down for bed, I found this great ill-prepared-Easter post at IzzyMom, my current new favorite "blommy mogger." Her site is also where I discovered those great new "one click" buttons at the bottom of my sidebar... please do check those out for an effortless (really!) way of helping out women and children in need. A couple of causes near and dear to my heart.
Now back to me.
Needless to say, despite our lack of preparation, the boys didn't know what 
they were missing this Easter and had an absolutely wonderful day. The Easter bunny really delivered the goods this year, including incredibly necessary additions to Pants's dinosaur collection, as well as his first jumbo chocolate bunny. The boy gnawed on that thing for hours. He loved it.
I'm sure we'll return to your regularly scheduled Easter programming next year, but I'm willing to bet that this one will stand out as one of the greats in years to come.
By the way, if you want to know what kind of Easter humor makes an 8 month old little boy laugh and dance until he wears himself out, check out this link. Aah, that crazy bunny.
