Evil Easter Bunny
The grandchildren visited last weekend. It was Easter. We bought chocolate eggs, bunnies, carrots, and even six pounds of gummy bears. (We have gummy bears for their next visit!)
What’s Easter without an Easter Egg Hunt?
Hiding candy is fun for grandparents; finding candy is even more fun for grandchildren. But, watching it being found is best of all.
Stash on the “butter bed:”
During the hunt, they stashed “found” candy on the “butter bed.” (“Butter bed” is the name I gave our king size PosturePedic® bed. It feels like settling into firm butter when you lay down. The kids laughed the first few times I said it, but “butter bed” stuck. It’s a treat for them to sleep in it.)
They ran back and forth seeking, giggling, and stashing.
Evil Easter Bunny:
I stood in the hall, looking into an empty room and yelled, “I see some candy you missed!” They’d come running like a stampede of hungry candy goblins. While they were distracted, I sneaked to the “butter bed,” stole candy from their stash, and re-hid it in another room.
I’d stand in the hall, looking into another room, and yell, “I see some candy you missed!”
What’s more fun than watching grandchildren hunt for hidden candy? Hiding it again and watching them find it a second or third time!
Confession:
They got confused when they found candy where the’d just found candy.
I couldn’t hold back any longer and finally told them I was taking their candy and re-hiding it. They looked confused for a bit, and then it hit them. They laughed and said, “Oh! Poppi.”
Leadership:
Remember goals; enjoy the journey.
How do you balance your need to achieve with enjoying the journey?
Good post Dan. We often forget that the journey is the “thing” and we miss the joy in and of it running headlong to our perceived destination.
I will also have to remember that for next easter. 🙂
Thank’s Martina. I’m so “proud” of myself for thinking of it. I love being evil easter bunny.
I thought I was the only one who did that! I didn’t own up and did it for three years with JP, and then again 9 years later when Marie was old enough. It was so much fun. The best was enjoying their wonder at the magic of the Easter Bunny.
Now that they’re adults, they find their own magic, and it still fills me with wonder when they do.
Enjoy the journey! Yesssss!
Congrats Lynn. It’s a great trick. Sadly, I was so proud of myself that I couldn’t NOT tell. 🙂
What a wonderful post, Dan. And I can promise you this: the Evil Easter Bunny will make an appearance in my home next year!
Enjoy being “evil.” Anthony. 🙂
Dear Dan,
“Remember goals; enjoy the journey” is a powerful idea. Remembering goal makes person directed and focused. This makes person effort and behaviour linked to goal. And I believe when you are directed and make effort , you enjoy. You know what you have done to achieve your goal. You know your progress and as you reach nearer to your goal, enjoyment keeps increasing.
I feel happy when I find that I have done something to support my goal. But when I do not do anything towards my goal or priority, I feel that something is missing. And I can not enjoy the external beauty. So, I believe that internal feeling of connecting and fulfilling shapes the external world. By changing our feelings we can make the world better and happier.
Thanks Ajay.
There is a joy in “getting things done.” That’s part of the journey. It’s funny to me that too much of a focus on getting things done and I lose the joy.
Thanks for sharing your journey.
My kids are hitting that age where they are still in to the hunt, but mostly to just see who can find the most. There are lessons in that, but you know, seeing my kids laugh make it worth it. Leading my family is more important than any other calling I have as a leader. It starts there.
Thanks Colby.
Love the hint at competitiveness in your comment. Good competitive is wanting to win…bad competitive is wanting my competitor to perform badly. I must confess that sometimes I’m a bad competitor.
Hi Dan,
Enjoyed that! Both the visuals and the sentiment there, and the excellent points you made.
I don’t remember when I first realized that the journey IS my life, and that goals are momentary waypoints, but from that point, it began to transform my approach to everything. Some of my learnings:
The goal generates the energy of desire that pulls us forward on the journey.
The journey is where life happens, and transformation can happen, and expansion can happen.
A lot of transformation and expansion happens as we make peace with, then learn to enjoy and welcome the contrasts on our journey.
If I am too focused on the goal, and not paying attention to the journey, I am missing/wasting my life.
When I’ve achieved one goal, made one waypoint, expanded to one level, it’s time to reach for another—not just to be better, or to own more, or to win more, but to generate more energy-and-pull, for more fun journeying, and more life.
Happy weekend!
Love this post Dan, thanks for sharing the fun story. Remind me to never turn my back on you!
Leading our families is our highest calling! (sadly we often sell out to the pursuit of industrial achievements)
I enjoyed the post 🙂
Great post 🙂 While I am pretty good at doing this at home, I haven’t really been enjoying the journey enough professionally. I think I need to stop and re-learn how to find that. Thanks 🙂
Indeed !
Thanks for sharing Dan, reminds me of about 1 year ago when I came to visit and met your family (and grandchildren) – happy memories. Today at work in orange trousers with a t-shirt emblazoned with a rainbow trout – I couldn’t agree more, do the unexpected, laugh and love everything you do.
Richard
Great story! I used to re-hide Easter eggs after my sibs found them. Sometimes I’d forget where I re-hid them and they would spoil. Mom wasn’t too happy about that!
I’ll have to remember this when I have grandchildren. When my own son was just 18 months old, we got him into the spirit of hunting for Easter eggs by hiding small cookies inside plastic eggs. It didn’t take long for him to get the idea, and the hunt was on. Now, in college, he still loves it when I hide our colored eggs for him and his cousins to find on Easter morning. The game’s still on!
Awesome post and a great reminder to enjoy the moments!!
Hi Dan for those of us with grandkids, your “drama play” was fascinating and entertaining. there are certainly a lot of take aways here but the one that resonates most with me is what you pinpoint when you infer that goals are important but it is the travel that makes it all worthwhile and gives them meaning. The goals themselves are inert if there is no greater purpose beyond them. What brings them alive is the passion we exude during the trek. The truth be known it is the journey that impacts others on or off our path; Reaching our goals has personal significance to be sure but never the exhiliration we experience when en route we touch other lives with different ideas, wishes, and needs. this reminds me of the ancient African Proverb: “If you want to go quickly go alone, if you want to go far go together.” As I pictured you running and hiding candies with your grandkids all scurrying about, neither the grandkids, you and yes not even the candy hold a candle to the joy, love and fulfillment of having all three together; absolutely priceless. You will certainly for sure “go far.”
Loved the story, and I could just picture the little ones having some much fun..and their grandpa even more! Life is good Dan 🙂
Love that story.Live the now and enjoy what you do.
I was initially going to comment about leaders and priorities dejour…shifting priorities mid-stream and how little glee might be involved in that experience, except for the leaders who believes they are just being conscientious and meeting customer need. That’s just my Doc Downer speaking…
But you know Dan, paybacks are a b**tch…someday, those same grandkids will be hiding your Easter candy from you and you will keep finding it and everything comes full circle.
Way cool, Dan! I will have to try that egg-hiding trick, too!