The Hunt

When The Three were little, Easter morning always started with an egg hunt. Oldest was joined by Middle and then Youngest, and they would carry baskets from room to room, trailing strands of plastic grass as they searched not-so-high and more-often-low for colored eggs. In recent years, the hunt has been a little different. One Easter morning, they arrived downstairs to find little notes in the places the baskets usually waited. That was the first year for the Easter basket treasure hunt. The clues led them all over the house and outside--math problems, book titles or events, poems, songs, riddles and jokes. Some clues were easy; some required more time and thought to solve. Clue led to clue until the treat-filled baskets were found.

This year Oldest is not home for Easter, and the rest of us will get up early to drive to visit out-of-town Grandma and Grandpa. It will be fun, but I'll miss the hunt. Even though there will still be special treats for The Three, I think they will miss it too. We could do a hunt with just Middle and Youngest, but it's more fun with all of them, and it would have to be a short hunt...where's the fun in that? Part of the fun is watching them grapple with a particularly hard clue. In fact, that's the best part. Doing the hunt part way would mean losing the stuff that makes it fun, so we'll just wait for next year. Of course, this does give me a lot more time to come up with some good clues...The Three are pretty clever, and I could use the extra time.