The Great Easter Egg Hunt
Easter egg hunts appeal to kids regardless of their age, so our daughter Jamie invited us to join in the fun on Easter Sunday by helping her hide the eggs for our grandkids Hazel (11), Hank (10), and Mae (6). The area selected was the 13th hole of a golf course near their house. In hindsight this may have been too large of a space because the search which started at noon almost spilled over into cocktail hour.
Twenty plastic eggs with a treat inside were hidden for each kid. Jamie assigned each one two colors and they were to only collect those particular eggs. Hazel immediately wanted to know why Hank always got the best colors. This put a damper on the event from the beginning, and Jamie had to assure her that it was not intentional.
Mae required quite a bit of assistance because she was looking for the eggs at eye level or above. She had no trouble finding the ones hidden in trees but those on the ground gave her problems. Hank did better at finding golf balls with torn covers than his assigned eggs, so he became frustrated. After about an hour Hazel had found 19 and wasn’t able to locate the 20th one. There was no way anyone was leaving until she had the same amount as Hank and Mae, so a 7 person search party went to work. Luckily Jamie found the last one before the Coronavirus quarantine was lifted and golfers were back on the course.
During the activity Patti and I noticed that Hank and Mae weren’t on the best of terms. Jamie said their disagreements had escalated since the COVID-19 lockdown started. What she was doing to handle it was put both of them together in a room for 15 minutes and they weren’t allowed to come out until they stopped fighting. She would add 5 penalty minutes each time she heard them arguing. Since it was very difficult for them to maintain harmony for any length of time, Jamie would normally get about an hour of peace and quiet in another part of the house (For anyone doing the math, that equals 9 penalties).
On the way back from the golf course, each kid either spilled or dropped their basket full of eggs multiple times which resulted in the plastic eggs coming apart and the contents hitting the pavement. Patti and I left before they opened everything because we didn’t want to know if the treats were washed before being eaten. Even in these uncertain times I don’t think they worried about a few germs, and rinsing everything off probably wasn’t a consideration.
A relatively short time being around kids again made me feel for the parents who are with their kids 24/7 right now. I think every one of them should receive an extra stimulus check from the government.
enough