Trying to catch the rabbit 'in the act'

Did you have a Happy Easter? Did the Easter Bunny bring you enough candy to keep you wired for most of this week?

It was a beautiful weekend and we were fortunate to have the entire family home. We left the house twice, I think and had a wonderful time just being together. I think we often forget what a blessing family truly is, and should make more time just to be together.

Granddaughter Persephone, just over seven months old, is working on crawling. She can get into the four-point stance, but hasn't worked out getting her knees down and coordinating the hands and the knees. She often ends up sprawling forward.

I suspect she may just skip the crawling thing and go straight to walking, since she enjoys pulling herself up to a standing position. She has discovered how to clap her hands and gesticulate wildly with her arms when excited. Hours of free entertainment.

One of the things that Sephie's parents wanted to get done this weekend was to get her picture taken with the Easter Bunny. We went to the Easter Egg Hunt in Remsen and waited in line for our turn with the bunny. It all went well, no crying or fussing. In fact, I think she enjoyed the brief time on the rabbit's lap. We'll see how it goes with Santa...

Watching the children of all ages participate in the egg hunt and having a photo op with the Easter Bunny, I was struck by how much and how little has changed over the years. The bunny has remained a constant, but the photo op with the person in the suit that looks like how I imagine the title character from the movie "Harvey" and the constant recording of what goes on is, I believe, something new.

The democratization of the egg hunt so everyone gets either the same number of eggs or at least a fighting chance to get some eggs is an improvement I wholeheartedly agree with. I can recall taking my daughters to egg hunts when they were toddlers and being forced to compete with other parents to ensure that any eggs would be collected at all.

Easter, with the candy and gifts, is a holiday for family and children, especially young children. As a parent, I enjoyed hiding the eggs in the yard (or inside if Easter was early and the weather didn't cooperate) and watching the kids find the brightly colored plastic eggs with candy inside.

One Easter, a squirrel found one of our plastic eggs, broke it open and sampled the candy inside. Fun fact: squirrels prefer peanut M&Ms to bubblegum eggs. The remaining bubblegum egg had small teeth marks on it where the squirrel had sampled the goods.

The tale is now part of our family's myths and legends.

As a child, I often tried to get up early enough to catch the Easter Bunny making his rounds. I suppose many of us did the same with Santa as well. I never was able to get up early enough to catch the wascally wabbit.

Turns out that Mom prepared the baskets the night before.

Just like my wife and I did for our daughters, who admit that they too, got up early to catch a glimpse of the Easter Bunny.

I imagine my children will do the same for their children, who I'm guessing will miss some sleep in their rabbit stake-outs of the future.

We enjoyed a ham dinner on Sunday and wished the kids God speed and safe journey shortly after lunch. The weekend was a very enjoyable blur.

That's why holidays, in my opinion, are so important. They give us time to reconnect as families, allow us to get caught up on what is going on in everyone's lives, share some gifts, eat some great food and create the most precious commodity of all -- memories.

As always, I welcome your comments. You can reach me by email at tstangl@lemarscomm.net, telephone 712-546-7031, x40 or toll free 1-800-728-0066 x40.

Thanks for reading, I'll keep in touch. Feel free to do the same.