Easter Egg Hunt

Today I took Jack to his first official Easter Egg Hunt! What an experience! Before the hunt began we met the Easter Bunny and found Julie who was bringing Lincoln and Charlotte. Julie's husband Clark came as well so he could take Charlotte in her age group and Julie come with me with the boys. It was pretty chilly outside when we first got there, so standing around holding a squirmy 22 month old while 7 months pregnant was not the most comfortable thing in the world to do! I had to hold Jack for quite a while as more and more people kept pouring into the park. Finally a looong ten minutes after the hunt was supposed to begin the officials blew the whistle to release the kids.

Now...I don't know about you...but I had visions of all these sweet little toddlers skipping merrily up to the eggs and putting them in their buckets and baskets all the while laughing with big smiles looking up at their parents adoringly... That's the way it's done on TV right?!

Oh man! I could not have been more wrong! I lost Julie in about 2.8 seconds. As soon as that whistle blew parents in the front row waiting ran out with their kids, so parents behind them had to pick up their kids and run in front of them to find eggs, so parents in the third row had to pick up their kids and run up in front of parents from the second row. Now the parents who were in the first row had scavengered all the eggs in their area, so they had to pick up their kids and run up to new eggs in front of the parents who were originally from the third row...and it just kept going...in this leap frog pattern of run, grab some eggs, grab your kid and run in front of the other parents.

Sadly...I admit I was one of the parents picking up and running! I was overwhelmed by a mob mentality! I wanted Jack's first egg hunt to be successful, so I had to make sure he was in an area where he could find some eggs...right!?

Meanwhile Julie is calmly following Lincoln around picking up random eggs that were left behind by the scavengers, I mean other parents and kids. When we met back up, she was laughing and telling Clark how fast I could run and how she and Lincoln got left behind. Julie is not going to let me live this one down...she says I'm "one of THOSE parents"...

Oh well...at least I got some candy out of it!