A few days ago, Brady --in a near-panic-- asked when Easter would be. I told him, and he expressed an urgent need to see the Easter Bunny. (He knows the real meaning of Easter; a visit to Bun E. Rabbit has just always been one of our traditions.) So I abandoned my half-hatched plan to ditch the activity this year and made a mental note that today would be the day. I just didn't tell anyone. In hindsight, that was probably a mistake.
Brady took the news quite well, but Isaac and Abby... oh, Isaac. And. Abby. Isaac's consternation came first: he ranted and raged and shed tears all the way from the elementary school to the middle school. It was, in a nutshell, a World War-esque kind of tantrum that he anointed with a fresh batch of big, salty tears. (All of this even though he actually wanted to see the big bunny. Yeah. I don't get it, either.)
Never one to be outdone, Abby closed the car door and turned to me when I told her of the plan --her eyes alight with teenagerish angst-- and sputtered But what if someone from school sees me? (I know. The mortification.)
When we got home, I told them to change into "nice clothes." They did so with varying degrees of success. (Widely varying.) Abby, who knows how much I value these silly pictures, complied nicely by donning a spring-y dress. Check. Isaac did okay with his golf shirt. Slightly smaller check, but still a check. But Brady, oh my Brady: when he appeared in the family room wearing his Hawaiian shirt, athletic shorts, and Ninja Turtle slip-ons, part of me died inside. How are these nice clothes? I wondered to myself. On what planet are those NICE CLOTHES?! I wanted to scream at him, but I didn't.
With images of them saying cheese in their little three-piece suits tugging at my memory, I came this.close to sending the boys back upstairs to change. But I didn't. Instead, I said nothing. I even let out a stifled laugh --that this-isn't-really-that-funny-but-I-feel-like-I'm-so-close-to-the-edge-that-I'll-lose-it-if-I-don't-laugh kind of laugh-- as I ushered them out to the car, and that was it. And this is our Easter Bunny picture for this year.
It really pissed me off to have my plan disrupted. I like my perfect holiday images; I like seeing them in their nice clothes, hamming it up and looking good. Not perfect --because I know there's no such thing in this all-too human, all-too broken world-- but good. But you know something surprising? In spite of its "imperfections" --the shorts, the messy hair-- I kind of like this picture anyway. It's real. And a nice dose of "real" is a very good thing for me sometimes. After all, nothing will truly be "perfect" until we get to Heaven anyway.
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