rss feedA duck and an egg (many, in fact): An afterthought on Easter 2010
If there’s one lesson that parenthood has reminded me, it’s that there’s no substitution for good planning.
I know that lesson should have been ingrained in my mind for years – even before becoming a parent. But hey, when an Easter egg hunt rolls around and you miss out for some family fun, you do think about the next year.
In 2009, we trekked out to an egg roll after searching for various events in our area. When we arrived, we spotted a packed parking lot and parents and kids streaming out of the egg roll area.
They were returning to their cars and leaving.
No problem, I thought. We’ll still go in and have fun. But 10 minutes already had elapsed.
There were no eggs or fun toys to be found.
We enjoyed all the noise and color that kids can bring to any event. We stood around for the moment. I also began thinking about next year’s event.
This year’s egg hunt was much better – in terms of arriving early and getting a small bounty in a crowd of kids, colorful balloons and parents with cameras.
The event we went to this past weekend had indoor and outdoor activities.
A police officer arrived in his patrol car and let the kids turn on his siren. Soon, a long line formed next to his car.
My only thought (besides knowing that kids were having fun): That guy is going to be there for awhile.
When it was time for the grand hunt for eggs, my son lined up behind a line with throngs of other kids. His felt basket was in hand.
My wife gave him instructions on what to do – noting that he would go out on his own and pluck the colorful plastic eggs sitting in between the grass blades.
It would be his first egg hunt (with actual eggs in front of him).
The organizer had not even finished counting to 3 – the number which would start the hunt – when kids broke across the white line, scurrying to look down for those colorful pieces of plastic.
Our son was off, too.
Parents followed, as some kids were trying to figure out what to do.
My wife and I stressed the fun aspect of it – even though we heard some parents underscoring the idea of getting as many eggs as you can to their kids.
In fact, one father used the word in Chinese for something similar to “Charge!” – when military leaders want to rally their troops – when he spoke to his child.
Our son had a grand time, though.
The organizers were kind enough to have volunteers dump extra plastic eggs in empty spaces so kids who were in the back had an opportunity to pick something up.
After that, kids cracked those plastic eggs open.
Out came chocolate eggs, other candy, stickers and what looked like small erasers in various shapes.
As a father, I realized yet again that small things are big things when you’re a kid.
For decades, I never thought of attending an Easter egg hunt. Now, it’s a priority when the season rolls around.
I check online listings and note the time and date.
This year, we arrived on time.
In fact, we arrived early.
The catch, though, is that my wife and I would prefer my son didn’t eat so much candy. It’s common sense.
My son, of course, would prefer that he eat as much candy as he could in a given moment – or moments, if he had his way.
So, my wife and I offered what we thought was a fair trade: In exchange for his chocolate eggs and candy in the shape of rings, he could go to the store and pick out some fun toys.
It was, as some liked saying years ago: Game on.
We stopped by the store before we headed for home. We wandered the aisles and made stops at the $1 section and toy area.
As an adult, I always thought the $1 area was full of, well, items that might not always offer long-lasting quality.
But for a kid, it was selectionmania time.
Our son picked a bag full of rubber snakes and a butterfly net.
The net will come in handy this summer because we have a yard with flowers and other plants.
Our son should have a good chance to catch a flying insect to study.
Already, he put flowers in the netting and carried them around.
After the $1 area, we headed to the toy area, where he picked a small car and a Concorde-like toy airplane.
Just a few days earlier, he and I visited The Museum of Flight in the Seattle area and walked aboard the Concorde on display there.
Oh, yes: A word about the rubber duck.
At the Easter event, there was a fun indoor fishing activity for kids.
After they tossed the fishing line behind a small wall, a volunteer would attach a toy fish.
After that, as it looked to me, the kids could get a toy rubber duck. I asked for one to give to my son.
I only note this as an observation – not to inject anything else into this post.
But the duck was made in China.
As we know, manufacturing has sprouted over the past decade in China.
But many of the kids who walked away with a rubber duck in hand were the children of, as I suspect, college-educated Chinese professionals who moved to the Seattle area because of the large number of technology and other white-collar jobs.
Those ducks were likely made by migrants who left rural areas to go to factories in towns.
Those ducks made their way by truck to ports and were placed on cargo ships for the voyage across the Pacific Ocean to U.S. West Coast stores.
Then, some of the people who picked them up as prizes were the kids of college-educated Chinese who, in many cases, work in white-collar industries in the Seattle area.
But we all know what many people think – that journalists (or former ones, such as myself) worry about too much these days.
And sometimes what we worry about might have no direct meaning on people’s daily lives.
Or so the thought goes.
That being said, I can’t wait for more kid-friendly events this summer.
