If you can't bark with the big dogs, get off the porch

Never underestimate the competitiveness of The Suburban Parent. Scott and I have some toughening up to do as Mommy and Daddy and we had our first lesson on Saturday.

Every year, Carmel parks and rec hold an Easter Egg Hunt for kids from babies to pre-teens. We had planned to go once Liam awoke from his nap on Saturday morning. The little prince woke up at 9:30 so we had plenty of time to get ready and head over to the park (a 5 minute drive) for the egg hunt at 10:00. We planned to mosey on over, chat up a bunch of similarly-minded parents, revel in the "oohs" and "ahhs" from on-lookers as they see the cutest baby (ahem...of course that would be Liam) dressed up in his little knit outfit and, oh yeah, get us some Easter eggs!

So, down the street we drive, heading to the intersection where we need to turn right to get to the park and we come across a traffic jam at the intersection. (We live in suburbia in the middle of a developed cornfield in Indiana. There ARE no traffic jams.) This "traffic jam" was the line up of all of the other Suburban Parents trying to get to the park for the egg hunt, too. The 5 minute drive turned into a 25 minute drive as we followed the line of cars like a herd of cattle into the overflow parking lot for the park, far, far from the actual site of the hunt.

We finally got parked and hiked over to the starting area for the hunt (which was just a big field scattered with eggs--what kind of hunt is that?!) when we heard the "on your mark, get set, go!" of the hunt organizer. The hunt (read: race) was on and we were still moseying on over (well, a fast mosey at this point...). Needless to say, by the time we got over to our section (the 'hunt' was cleverly organized by age--so our group was the 0-2 year olds) there was nary an egg left on the ground and proud parents of 8 month olds paraded past us with the 25 eggs that their not-even-sitting-up infants managed to wrestle from the 5 month old beside them. Hmm, I kid you not.

(sorry it's blurry--I was snapping and quickly moseying at the same time!)

So, not wanting to be a disappointment to our first born, Scott and I wandered aimlessly around the field in the hopes that maybe one tiny little plastic egg lie hidden under a blade of grass...but with no luck. Our first egg hunt with our first child and we were failures.

There was many an egg-less child that we passed by who also had failure parents in tow, sharing comforting words of, "Don't worry, we'll do our OWN egg hunt at home..." which was often met with, "But I wanted to find eggs here...today...at the park..." Oh the heart-break. At least Liam had no clue what we were doing and that he missed out on some free candy and prizes.

We spent enough time in traffic on our way there and people were making the mass exodus out of the park, so we decided to stick around a bit and walk around and watch the kids open their eggs. We hiked up the hill and took pics of the scene below.

We came across a pair of 4 year old girls with their Suburban Moms delighting at their load of eggs they 'found' and I decided to ask to borrow an egg, just to get a picture with Liam. The one mother said, "Sure!" but if she could have attached a chain to that egg to make sure I didn't break and run with it, she would have. So, we took the picture and quickly returned the egg.

Now we can pretend that Liam got at least one egg and he won't know any differently.

But, for NEXT YEAR, Scott and I already have a plan. FIRST, we're getting there early. Even if we have to camp out. We'll be at the front of the pack. SECOND, we're bringing our own eggs. Seriously. No child of mine is going egg-less ever again. THIRD, we're bringing EXTRA eggs for the sad little misfit egg-less children whose parents also underestimated their neighbours' craziness. FOURTH, Liam will not hoard his eggs and will be encouraged to share with these aforementioned misfits. We gotta take care of The Little Guy.

So, besides a disastrous egg hunt experience, Saturday was Liam's 7 monthiversary! We took our monthly pic of him with Puppy on the couch:

We also spent the afternoon at a birthday party for a little boy in Liam's village playgroup who turned one. We rounded out the day with a lovely dinner out to celebrate Scott's new job and Liam's 7 months of wonder and joy.

Well, I must sign off now. We'll see you next weekend, Mr. Easter Bunny. I hear there's a neighbourhood hunt at the school down the street. Scotty, git your eggs!

love,

b