(Too) Early Easter Morning

Something landed in our bed with a thud. Seventy pounds worth of twin boys.

"Happy Easter!"

"Ummph!" An annoyed grunt from Tab.

"Happy Easter, Mama! It's Easter, it's Easter, yay, it's Easter!"

Tab raised his head and looked blearily at the clock. "It's only 6:45! Way too early, guys. Back to bed. Now!"

Disappointed, Matthew and Stephen trudged out the door and down the hall to their room. Daniel, unaccountably, was still asleep.

"C'mon, it's Easter," I reminded Tab. "Cheer up."

"You weren't the one they pounced on," he grumbled.

"Yeah, but you knew they'd be waking up early today."

"They didn't even wake up this early at Christmas," he said, getting out of bed.

Tab went downstairs to hide the Easter baskets. At our house, the boys know that the Easter Bunny brings the baskets but that Daddy hides them. It was just too complicated to explain how the Easter Bunny knew all the great hiding places in our house. After Tab left, I called the boys into the room.

"You can hang out on the bed here with me while we wait," I said.

"Just like Christmas, right, Mama?" commented Matthew.

"Right, honey."

So the three of us lay on the bed. Or, rather, I lay there, trying to rest for a few more minutes while Stephen and Matthew crawled around the bed, played under the covers, and examined the knicknacks on the headboard. Soon Daniel joined us, and a few minutes after that, Tab called the boys down.

We help the boys find their baskets by giving them directions: "You're getting warmer, warmer...no, getting cooler now, cooler, cold...OK, getting warmer, warmer, very warm, hot, burning hot!" Our house is small; there are not that many hiding places. In a very short time, all three boys had found their baskets and were happily noshing on candy and examining their other goodies.

Soon afterward I gathered up all the baskets and emptied each boy's candy into a Zip-loc plastic bag with his initial on it. We ration out their candy a few pieces at a time. Our boys are energetic enough under normal circumstances; they don't need a sugar high.

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