When Easter Goes Bad

I keep reading all of these wonderful Easter stories, full of family and happiness and well behaved children. Stories that would make Martha Stewart and Jesus proud.

But did anyone else have an Easter like mine?

It went down like this.

• Gabi barrelled down the stairs and ripped her basket apart in less than five seconds, not taking any notice of all the toys I'd lovingly picked out for her over the last few months in her quest for chocolate.
• Gabi noticed that there wasn't very much chocolate in her basket this year, and threw a fit.
• I debated about telling her about the chocolate filled plastic eggs hidden throughout the living room because I didn't want to reward her behavior, but thought a fun hunt might cheer her up. Maybe she'd just woken up on the wrong side of the bed?
• Gabi tore around the living room collecting eggs, and then plopped down on the floor and started stuffing chocolate into her mouth as fast as she could.
• When the chocolate was cut off, she screamed and cried about how unfair we were and threw her new toys on the ground.
• For the next several hours we kept finding her trying to get into her basket for more chocolate, which was in a time out on top of the fridge.
• Each time we caught her, she threw a loud, screaming tantrum. Dragging a flailing, screaming child off a kitchen counter without anyone getting hurt is HARD.
• After lunch, Gabi was allowed to have more chocolate. Why, I don't know, because she was soon running around the house in a sugar induced high, destroying it, and screaming every time I tried to get her to pick up after herself.
• In the afternoon, she looked out the window and saw the neighbor girl dressed in a puffier Easter dress then hers. She spent the rest of the evening crying about her horrible, not as puffy dress.
• In the bathtub she started sobbing about what a horrible Easter she'd had. She didn't get any chocolate, her dress wasn't puffy and her eggs hadn't even been hidden outside. How could I hide her eggs inside? HOW could I do that to her?
• I'd had ENOUGH.

I dragged her out of the bath and wrapped her tightly in a towel so she couldn't squirm away while I retold her the reason why we celebrate Easter. How it's all about Jesus rising from the dead, and how that meant we could now be forgiven for the bad things we do. And how Easter baskets and chocolate and pretty dresses are just an extra bonus, things that we do because we are so happy to celebrate such a wonderful day.

I thought I'd gotten through to her because she calmed down, stopped crying and ended up being upset that Jesus had been watching her bad self all day.

But today, when we picked up the little boy we car pool for preschool with, and he asked her how her Easter was, she told him about how awful it was. So much for getting through to her. Thankfully he ignored her and launched into a story about his new Spiderman scooter.

I was so livid I was on the verge of banning Easter baskets from our house forever and never letting any type of candy into our house EVER AGAIN, EVER, when a thought struck me. Maybe Gabi's behavior wasn't based so much on her, but on God punishing me for not going to church on, like, only one of the most important days on the Christian calendar.

I know, I skipped Easter Sunday. I am not without shame. But I thought we'd just forgo one year of crowds and parking hassles and take it easy at home. Instead my child turned into the devil.

Message from God, or just a coincidence?

Next year I'll try Easter baskets AND church and see how it goes. If Gabi's still acting ungrateful and bratty, then I'll implement a basket and candy ban.