Punkin & Buddy do Easter Crafts

The joys of divorce are having your children only one weekend out of two. This being the case in my life holidays is a challenge. Without some planning simple things like Easter egg hunts or even coloring them can be a challenge. Because of this split I have not had them on Easter for a number of years. This year we have a pleasant surprise of having the bunny visit our house and I was pretty much-caught off-guard. Thankfully my spouse was not. She had gone to the store earlier in the week and picked up some Easter egg coloring tools. Friday being an “off” day from school we set out to see what color we would make them eggs.


Punkin was up early on Friday and she sounded like the proverbial “when are we going to get there” child. About every 10 minutes I would get asked. Since some necessities like eating and bathing have to be done each day, by the time we started it was long past when she wanted to be egg dunking.

Buddy had to be coaxed from a DVD he was watching Larry Boy. The DVD was in the spirit of the season; it was a Veggie Tale story. A good compromise to getting him to the table was a pair of whoopee sticks. He would have rather pounded on the table with his whoopee sticks, then color eggs, but at least it was a start. Oh, and yes they are whoopee sticks. These would be a gag gift courtesy of my wife. I do wonder what would have happened if I had purchased them.

So all the while Punkin is dunking eggs into the dye, Oh, note to the readers combine dye, whoopee sticks and 8-year old boy at your own risk! So Punkin dunks eggs Buddy smacks his stick. Each egg has to lay in the dye for 3-4 minutes and I can hear the Jeopardy music in my head, but it seems to be this odd farting noise in my ears. The farting noise was courtesy of whoopee sticks being pounded on the table by my son. Again dye and pounding on the table ramp up the fear factor quotient.

Buddy would have been happy to stop, but that would mean the chants of, “Larry Boy” would then start. Parenting in these moments is all about compromise. I was under the idea that this was family time and damn if we weren’t going to do this as a family!! Each egg dunk would mean more farting from the sticks, when the sticks didn’t hit the table then he hit himself with them. When he wasn’t smacking with the sticks then he was trying to gouge out eyeballs with the metal egg dunker. Didn’t Paas know that tiny metal devices could gouge out eyes? Each time a “put that down” escaped from Dad’s mouth, then Buddy would say, “Larry Boy”

In this test of wills I was going to win, he was going to sit-up and enjoy dunking the damn eggs into these color-coded containers. He was not going to watch Larry Boy, he was going to color eggs! Triumphant as I wanted to be, what I was really hoping for was the dye to not spill all over the floor.

As you might expect Punkin painstakingly crafted each egg to perfection. Each was different and had a different idea behind it. One used rubber bands, the next glitter; still another had stickers and multiple color combinations. Buddy dunked each one in the same color, the exact same color. I guess he was going through his green phase. I did finally get him to draw with the wax crayon on an egg so it had a design, it was however still green. When you see the pictures of the eggs however they aren’t all green. Dad had his own ideas on coloring, Buddy would point to green dad would dunk it in something else.

After four eggs and countless times listening to Larry Boy being repeated for my listening pleasure, the pounding of the farting stick as well as the terror at dye being dumped all over the floor I let Buddy head out. Punkin didn’t seem to acknowledge whether Buddy was there or not. She just kept crafting her egg one sticker at a time. With one egg left to go and Dad having not colored a single one. Buddy was relieved of duty to find Larry, Curly, Moe or possibly Shemp. I set to work putting together this last and final egg. The gesture though cheesy is true. I wrote on my egg I ❤ Punkin & Buddy with the wax crayon. It looked great in green.

Where else can I get this sort of fun?