The Easter Bunny Accepts Rain checks

Many of you know Roman started a new day care center a few weeks back. And if you don’t know the story, suffice it to say it includes long, convincing although sometimes unbelievable reasons why this should have taken place. But luckily, (and by luckily, I mean after calling over 40 centers that would possibly be feasible for me to take him to and finding only a handful with availability and a few where you knew WHY there was availability right away…) I was able to get Roman into a new center that he is really enjoying.

That intro leads to this week’s blog, which the title may have tipped you to is about Easter. In my excitement to have found a new facility that boasted its "open learning model", I went about suggesting my first idea: An Easter Egg/Scavenger Hunt for the infants. Now, the first sign that the school has pretty good management in place is that they humored me when I mentioned a religious holiday and the word “scavenger” in the same breath as their infant classroom. And the second was that they already had an event like this for the older kids, just not those as young as Roman’s under 18 months class, since some had just mastered walking. But they not only humored me, they all got in on the planning (albeit after a few revisions). So in a matter of minutes, we had planned the first Infant Spring Egg-stravaganza, and I happily trotted off to buy plastic eggs, dye and marshmallow peeps while the teachers gathered baskets and bunnies.

The plan was to have the party, which would include dyeing eggs, an egg hunt and creating a mobile out of the plastic eggs for the room, on Friday. That morning, an excited mommy dropped off a play-clothed Roman and made plans to take the afternoon off to watch the festivities. So imagine my surprise when, at 10am, I received a call from the center director who told me that I needed to come get Roman not because he had crushed all the eggs before the kids could collect them (my latent fear) but because he had a 101 fever and had been listless all morning. Sad that he would miss the fun but more worried about a return of the dreaded ear infections despite his tube surgery, we picked him up and spent a weekend nursing what doctor’s deemed “a sinus infection coupled with an unknown virus”. Solution: Amoxicillin and time. (I’ll leave my frustration with the pediatric field to another post!)

On Monday, the center called to check on Roman and learned he was on his way to recovery and likely would be back in school Tuesday. That’s when they told us that they had delayed the party until he could participate and the dyeing and hiding would take place whenever he returned. I was genuinely happy that he didn’t miss the fun and the next day armed him again with play clothes but also with a disposable camera since Mommy would have to miss the party this time.

When I picked him up that afternoon, he was sitting in a pile of plastic eggs happily handing them to Ms. Cheryl and pronouncing “eeeg” (or egg) each time she took one and “tank chew” (or thank you) when she gave them back. She told me all about the dyeing before naptime and the eggs being hidden all over but in plain view so that when the kids awoke, they could start their hunt. She also said other parents had gotten on board and brought stickers for the eggs and made a dessert out of Jello and cool whip and didn’t even blink at postponing the party til Roman returned.

In true early bird fashion, Roman woke from his nap first and immediately shot off his mat and started following the egg trail. Apparently he was so fast, Ms. Cheryl had to bring him a basket to collect them all, and then take them out while he wasn’t looking and re-plant them for the other kids! They apparently were so loud with their screeches that the neighboring toddler and 3-year room came by to see why they seemed to be having more fun then they had at their party. Finally, they all shared the marshmallow peeps, to which Roman stuck them in his hair for his teachers to extract.

All in all, they seemed to have a great time and I was able to get the pictures on a disk so that the other parents could see their little ones if they couldn’t come by. (Though I will apologize in advance, I bought a bad camera and the pics are really grainy!) The little ones got to play like the big kids, the parents got to see how active their kids really could be at that age, and the teachers had a hoot watching the babies go at it. Plus, I got a nice indication that I might have found a good center for my son after all. Who says you can’t have your peep and eat it too?