Eggs and Bunnies oh my!

I was never really a huge Easter fan until I became a parent. I mean its no Christmas but its still one of the funner holidays! (I’m sure many will bash me because I’m not talking about the religious aspects of these holidays, but the festive stuff we do with kids is so so so much fun and ps I know funner isn’t a word but more fun doesn’t translate my feelings about the day!)
BUT It’s a total bittersweet time of year…its so very sad since it’s the time when we lost my brother Paul BUT its also Easter and Owen Paul’s birthday time. Owen’s first birthday actually landed ON Easter! So the emotions are like a roller coaster…extreme highs and happiness and lows as well.

This past weekend we headed to Irvine Regional Park to visit the Easter Bunny and partake in the Egg Hunt with a group of friends. Since it was a Saturday we decided to get there RIGHT when it opened…which proved to be a great decision since it got very warm, very crowded, and very quickly!

We were in the first easter egg hunt of the day…it was pretty crowded. They were strict about ticket sales and number of eggs pre child but let the parents go in with the kids. My poor little man seemed excited about the egg hunt until it was time to go get the eggs. I’m assuming its his anxiety around crowds…which we haven’t seen like this before. He refused to pick up the eggs and said he was scared. Walked out with nothing…crying over his fears.

Its very hard to watch your child be scared about things that don’t seem rational, ie, an egg hunt! Makes us as parents frustrated with him and the situation but I think we need to learn the right way to deal with this. Do we enable him to be scared or do we force him to do things?!? We joke about him being scared of everything, movies, loud noises, the dark, movie theatres, parades, shows, disney rides, etc. But on a serious note I had never seen him be scared over something like this. Makes me a tad concerned about his anxiety and if its becoming a real problem. How does that work…doesn’t anxiety usually get worse with age, and if he’s having issues coping now what will elementary, middle and high school be like for him. Something I’m going to mention to his pediatrician at his 4 year check-up. Everyone has said that he’ll grow up out it (covering his ears when he’s scared or around anything loud, etc) BUT it seems that its actually get worse as he gets older.
But after the crowd really died down, Owen braved it up and went back in and got some eggs…

Broke my heart to watch him…

But then after that “episode” he was fine…back to his normal self!

So to say I was nervous about the Easter Bunny was an understatement. I thought since he was scared of the Egg Hunt he was going to be terrified of the bunny…But he proved me wrong…did great!

Easter Bunny Flashbacks with Owen…

Started out rough…but has gotten better each year! Brave Boy!

The place started getting crowded…kids started having melt downs about what activities they wanted to do…but all in all I’m so glad we DO punish ourselves and do these types of things. haha. Sometimes we get overwhelmed but I know in the future when we look back we’ll be so happy we did all this kinda stuff.