It’s increasingly less often these days but every now and then something happens that reminds me that he’s still my little baby.
Like the other day when the very young lady at the barbershop heard me asking for just a little trim of his shoulder length hair but mistook that for chop it all off. He suddenly went from a nine year old who corrects me when I misspeak to a little boy who then asked to go to the playground and quickly forgot that he didn’t like his new hairdo.
Or when we moved him into a big boy room last week with a big boy bed and he spent time organizing all his stuffed animals on the bed now that he had room for them all. He even took a nap because he was so excited to lay with his toys. He looked E.T. hidden amongst the stuffies.
And then just a few days before Easter when we found ourselves at the mall down the road and saw the Easter Bunny. As we don’t go to the mall often and typically only go around Christmas to see Santa I’m not sure he’s ever seen the big Bunny in it’s natural habitat before much less knew you could take a picture. Our little boy’s back straightened and his eyes widened and he stared in at the big goofy human sized rabbit with the round glasses.
Not knowing where he was with the bunny thing I asked him if that was the real Easter Bunny?
“Of course it is! That is the real bunny but you do know it’s not a real bunny, right? It’s just a man or a woman in a costume. They are paid by the President or the Vice-President or the Government to dress up and sneak into kids houses and leave them a basket of treats on Easter.”
“Oh, okay.” I said. “I’m glad we got that straightened out. But don’t you think….” I let it go.
I suggested we’d come back the next day and get a picture since we weren’t dressed for photos. He was thrilled at the idea and kept looking back as we walked away from the Bunny that apparently our taxes pay for.
But, when we came back he had stage fright and his nerves got the best of him. He was fine with us just snapping a picture for the wall in his new big boy room.
As a nine year old and easily the largest kid in line I worried that he was embarrassed that he was the biggest kid there and perhaps I was witnessing his first bout of shame.
Nope! Not so fast. He was simply too nervous to get his picture with the man or woman the President or Vice-President pays to dress up like a bunny.
The Easter Bunny! Our little boy still believes in the Easter Bunny
