Dear Easter Bunny: please stop giving toddlers Easter baskets

After any major event or accomplishment in my life, I like to go through a list of “lessons learned” to learn from mistakes and make improvements. It’s kind of a little one-on-one challenge with myself. (And I always win.) This Easter was no exception. This is what happened, and it wasn’t pretty:

Weeks Prior to Easter:

I frantically shop for candy and treats that have the following large, bold letters on their packages: “SUGAR FREE” and “NO PRESERVATIVES” and “HEALTHY.” Short of putting carrot sticks and broccoli in the basket (which I’d probably go to jail for), and utterly defeated, I end up staring down the toddler cookies in the Gerber aisle. I buy a few packages that say “SUGAR FREE” and “NO PRESERVATIVES” and “HEALTHY” on the boxes. But I don’t think I believe them.

Lesson Learned #1: Toddlers Don’t Even Know They’re Supposed To Get Candy In Their Baskets, Dumb Ass.

Why am I shopping for candy and treats for an almost-2-year-old, anyway?? Why do I expect him to even have all of these expectations of the Easter Bunny? Last I checked, he doesn’t have anything to compare to. His friends can’t talk and it’s not like he’s got notches above his crib counting all the past successful holidays (at least, I don’t think…). I have also yet to find a personal diary of his life events.

Day 2 of Life, 2011: I was rudely interrupted during breakfast this morning by this pink and white alien-like creature with some monster ears and a weird name (his parents must have hated him) hopping around like an idiot. Note to self: don’t think I’m going to like this place. 

Easter 2012: I don’t know what this event is that is taking place, but my caretaker/secretary/personal chef/maid made me wear my finest clothes (and then cried a little bit when I puked on them) and tried to give me this box full of colorful, shiny things that she wanted me to interact with so she could take pictures. Note to self: woman needs a hobby.

Easter 2013 Expectations: Candy, toys, bubbles, cookies, new shoes (with the things that light up on the sides), cookies, new hat (that I’ll only wear long enough for the secretary to just miss a perfect picture and then try to get me to put it back on for the rest of the day–what fun this game will be!), a couple ponies and kittens, cookies,  and a carriage ride through town drawn by four of the best horses.

Lesson Learned #2: Not A Good Idea To Buy Toddler Cookies In Bulk.

Are you taking notes? Did anyone notice the words “few boxes”? Why, for the love of God, did I think I needed more than one box of cookies for the one and only child we have?? Did I think I was going to give him 6 dozen cookies to eat that day? Now what am I going to do with all of this SUGAR FREE, NO PRESERVATIVES, HEALTHY crap (which taste like cardboard, by the way)?

Easter Sunday:

Junior awakes to find an Easter Basket in the middle of his room and tries to climb/jump/nose dive out of his crib to get it. Luckily we are there to prevent a trip to the hospital. Inside his basket of awesomeness (among other toys and books that, upon realization there were cookies involved, were regarded as highly as the three-week-old gum on the bottom of his left shoe) are three plastic Mater-shaped boxes.

He opens one box. (Okay, he really shakes it, bangs it on the ground a few times, and then makes me open it.) “OOK!!!!!” he screams (translation: cookie) and shoves the entire thing in his mouth. Mr. J and I think this is cute. We encourage him to open the second box. “OOK!!!!!!” he shrieks and shoves that cookie in his mouth, while still chewing the first, before we can grab it. Then he notices the third box, and by that point, Mr. J and I didn’t exist (other than to open the box). Fine, eat three cookies before breakfast. It’s a holiday.

The night before, Mr. J was actually giving me a hard time for not preparing an Easter egg hunt out in the woods. Because he thinks this is how he would like to hunt for Easter eggs (if someone loved him enough to hide Easter eggs for him with…. cash, bullets, and golf balls…??? inside). *Note: This is why grown men don’t get to take part in Easter egg hunts. So anyway, I of course thought his idea was one of the Great Ones because I, too, want the almost 2-year-old to

1. bring me back another round of poison ivy
2. come out looking like Pigpen from Charlie Brown, and/or
3. go digging around in the woods and bring back anything that resembles chocolate.

Lucky for me, it was 10 degrees (practically) on Easter so I said to Mr. J, “Babe, GREAT idea. Really. One of the Great Ones!!! However, I think we should save it for never…. I MEAN NEXT YEAR!!! Let’s do that GREAT IDEA NEXT YEAR! No, actually, never. Okay, good talk….“

So Instead, I put a couple of Easter eggs filled with cookies in Junior’s dump trucks for him to find that afternoon. Luckily I used my last couple of functioning brain cells and did not put out the 35 Easter eggs I had filled the night before. Mr. J and I reasoned, quite rationally, that after finding the eggs, Junior could eat one cookie now and save the rest for later. In order to continue to control the amount of cookies Junior would want to eat, we would simply have “Easter week” and hide the rest of the eggs for him to find later this week.

Six more cookies later and a series of sugar-induced meltdowns demanding, “OOK, MO! MO! MEEEE! OOK!!!!!!!!” (translation: If you don’t give me more cookies I’m going to pee all over your freshly painted walls and then I’m going to find your secret stash of chocolate Easter eggs and feed them to the dogs.) and we realized our grave, grave mistake.
Lesson Learned #3: I Think People Have Gone to Federal Prison For Giving Toddlers Cookies For Breakfast….

Easter, Grandma’s birthday, the World Series… all very bad reasons for any child under the age of 21 to be eating cookies for breakfast.

Lesson Learned #4: Why Are We STILL Talking About Giving Toddlers Cookies For Easter?

Good Lord, I feel like a “new mom.”

All Things Unlearned chronicles my journey in unlearning everything I already thought I knew through my experiences as a wife, a mother, and an American through funny, overly-opinionated, witty, sometimes offensive, and yet always entertaining banter. Come be amused.