Mrs. Easter Bunny Stopped By

Easter Eve was always more special than Easter morning in my home. My sisters and I would stay up late eating capirotada, a Mexican dish my mom made every year that filled our home with the smell of melted sugar.

At bedtime, we'd giggle in the dark, as we speculated over the size of the Easter baskets Mrs. Easter Bunny would bring. More than Peeps and jelly beans, we hoped for giant chocolate Easter bunnies whose ears we'd devour before breakfast the next morning. I say might because sometimes there was no chocolate.

I remember waiting for the sound of crinkling plastic, until one year, without warning, Mrs. Easter Bunny never came. Is there an expiration date on the Easter Bunny?

My eleven-year-old son cornered me in the grocery store last year and asked if Santa and the Easter Bunny were real. So many thoughts raced through my mind as I thought of how to answer. "Well ... " It was over. My baby was no longer a baby. I remember how he scrutinized me with his big brown eyes that communicated without words that he knew the truth.

A dear friend and neighbor dropped by yesterday afternoon to return a dish. During our conversation I realized that with the craziness of preparing to have family over for Easter, I'd inadvertently forgotten to make our son's Easter Basket (something that's proven challenging each year due to his food allergies). When I mentioned that our son didn't believe in the Easter Bunny, anymore, my neighbor laughed and replied that her twenty-something daughter still expected her chocolate bunny. That's when I remembered how much I've missed mine.

Mrs. Easter Bunny did drop by before six a.m., leaving tracks all the way up to our son's room. He'll wake to find a small basket bursting with yellow grass, a book, Swedish Fish, Skittles, and Minecraft toys. He'll even find a small, stuffed, yellow chick to remind him he'll always be my baby.

Why is the Easter Bunny a Mrs. instead of a Mr? I'll tell you why -- because The Country Bunny And The Little Gold Shoes says so.