Most houses have an Easter Bunny. For some reason, we have an Easter Pig. The Easter Bunny is fluffy and cute and puts of lots of chocolates (or Easter eggs) for good little boys and girls.

Our Easter Pig is taller, cute in a kind of a hairy-pig type of way, and makes everyone work for the treats. Our Easter Pig, however, is NOT what Google described at an overweight woman who wears too much makeup. That’s just mean. Our Easter Pig is adorable and lovable and largely make-up-less.

The EP’s rules are simple – If you find all the candies, you get the HUGE Kinder Egg about the size of an elephant’s head. If you came up one short, the Pig gets the big ass Kinder Egg. Or I do. (I was a little hazy on the final details of who got that Kinder Egg.)

Anyway, in our house, the Easter Pig hides the chocolates all over the place. It doesn’t hide chocolates under things, inside of things or buried in things. So no hunting through the Prettiest-girl-in-the-world’s underwear drawer. No digging through my book shelves and mis-aligning books. No crawling under the couch and becoming covered in dust and dog toys. No unrooting half-dead plants in the planters. No breaking into the pantry and filling your pockets with cookies.

All of the treats are put in plain sight. But that’s the genius of the Easter Pig. You’d think they’d all be easy to find, but no, the Easter Pig is cunning.

So this Easter weekend, the boys woke up to what the Easter Pig had done. They’re used to the Pig, but in a much smaller house. This year, the Easter Pig went crazy, hiding 130 Hershey’s kisses in all sorts of places. On chandeliers. On top of pictures. On doorknobs (the foil the same color as the metal).

Ok, eerr, the Easter Pig actually hid 140 kisses, but someone, who may nor may not have been me, I’m not admitting to anything, ate 10 of them before the boys got up. Whoever ate them, in fairness, found them and thought that they were for him, I mean, him or her, so, yeah, it was a total mistake but completely understandable, right???

Apart from those 10 kissed mysteriously disappearing, I loved the Hunt. It was my first Easter Pig morning.

The boys ran around gathering the low hanging fruit –  the kisses put on pillows, counters and tables. Then, when they were told they were only half done, they raced around, each boy trying to gather more than his brother.

The Youngest came up with a strategy that involved him simply moving faster than his brother. His brother would see one, and move towards it, but The Youngest moved with Flash-like speed, a blur of blue PJs and blond hair and grab it first. Then make an evil laugh.

I think he’ll make a fine super-villain one day.

The Oldest then countered by going after only the ones up high. No matter how much The Youngest jumped, he couldn’t reach them. So he went low, looking in the planters, on the small cabinets and on window sills. He would not be stopped!

After a short time, they had nearly a 120, but those last 10 were a bugger. One was found dangling from the family easy-erase board. One was found on the handle holding the toilet paper. One was found hidden in a lego display.

That left 7.

The Prettiest-girl-in-the-world, being an ally of the Easter Pig, spotted one and gave a hint. “Sounds like ‘Smiling Habinet’.” Then, she saw another and said, “it sounds like ‘litchen Hink’.”

The boys soon found the last ones, and, as promised, they got to open the gigantic planet-sized Kinder Egg.

I have to say, it was so much fun watching the boys hunt around, unlocking Easter Pig secrets (like the Pig loved to hide things on lamps in such a way that made the kisses look like part of the lamp.) I loved that they were good-natured about the competition (I think The Oldest got the most candies, but The Youngest definitely worked the hardest.)

And I loved being a part of it.

As a non-dad for so long, it’s still surprising to me how much I enjoy the little things. That walk in the park with the boys. Christmas morning. Band (or choir) recitals. Even teaching The Oldest to mow the lawn or The Youngest how to vacuum.

Plus, at the end of all the searching, we got to eat the chocolate as well, though The Youngest wanted to know what we’d do for him if he gave us a chocolate.

Next year, though, I think we might name it the Easter Kiss Hunt.

*****

What things do you do for Easter. I had a friend who made a huge adventure for her kids (and I’ll try to get her to write about it.)

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