Today the whole family went to the Columbia SportsPark for an egg hunt. I should have known it would be trouble by the official name: Searching for Spring Egg Hunt. Why can't they call it what it is, an Easter egg hunt? I understand the desire to be inclusive, but lots of people pretend to be Irish on St. Patrick's Day so they can march in parades and drink green beer. People dress up as monsters, ghouls and (most horrifying) celebrities for Halloween. Why can't people pretend to be Christian for an Easter egg hunt?
Anyway, a bunch of tables with crafts were set up outside with activities like face painting, making refrigerator magnets, coloring, etc. The only craft Jacob actually did was putting stickers on bookmarks. He even enjoyed it. Though not as much as he enjoyed the playground. He did a lot of climbing and sliding. Also, he rode on the decorative lawn alligator nearby. The alligator did not move but Jacob sure pretended that it did. By the time the organizers were ready to start the egg hunt, we were at the back of the line to get in.
The actual egg hunt seemed pretty organized. Different areas of the park were designated for different age groups, e.g. 2-4 year old, 5-6 year old, etc. The posted signs said 4 eggs per child. Most of the areas were on the miniature golf course, though the area for the oldest children was on a flat grassy area. People lined up and filed in to the areas quite nicely. Since we were at the back of the line, by the time we got in it was hard to find eggs. The difficulty was partly due to unsupervised children who picked up as many eggs as they could, which was annoying to the responsible adults. The 2-4 year olds didn't particularly mind.
The second annoying thing for the adults was that the 2-4 year old area seemed to be the hilliest part of the mini-golf course and also had an artificial stream running through it. I didn't see any children fall or jump into the water but I did see several attempts (intentional and not). Why weren't the littlest children on the big, flat field of grass?
Jacob had a good time anyway. That is, until we went to leave. Angie had mentioned that we'd probably see the Easter bunny there. Jacob never said anything about the bunny while we were there. As we walked out, he became really agitated and wouldn't walk and was shouting about how he didn't want to leave yet. We felt bad for him, so we said we'd go to Dunkin Donuts for a treat (it's important to sacrifice for your children). This calmed him.
In the car on the way to the donut shop, Jacob asked, "Where the heck is the Easter bunny?" That got a laugh from us, though I am ashamed to admit that he probably picked up the swear word from me. We told Jacob that the Easter bunny was probably resting up from last weekend, though on further reflection, I think he was probably ashamed to show up at a Searching for Spring Egg Hunt.
