The sky is blue, the glittering lake is bluer still, and Resurrection Sunday never looked so good as I stand here with my sisters and my bestie taking it all in.
The air carries the sounds of children’s laughter mixed with carnival music, vendors calling out their wares, and the occasional shriek of a toddler who’s just discovered that Easter bunnies are actually giant costumed humans with questionable social skills.
The Hop ’Til You Drop Easter Festival has transformed the lake into a pastel wonderland with giant inflatable bunnies bobbing in the breeze, colorful Easter egg displays with kids lining up a dozen deep, ready to make one of their own, and an entire sea of pastel buntings has been strung between the trees to ensure that spring has sprung indeed.
“Oh, good grief,” Meg mutters, surveying the explosion of Easter décor around us. “Did someone rob a party store and use the loot to accost the entire lake?”
I totally get why Meg wouldn’t be all that into Easter décor. She’s more of a Halloween girl, as evidenced by the black leather jacket, matching pants, and thick black combat boots she’s donned today—and every day. And leather, really? At the lake when the temps are climbing toward triple digits? To each their sweaty own.
Lainey laughs. “More like someone robbed every Easter decoration manufacturer between here and Boston,” she adds, adjusting little Mimi’s frilly pink bonnet. Her girls are wearing matching dresses, and Lainey’s dress is made from the exact same fabric. It’s so adorable, I just have to do that with Lyla Nell next year, or next week, or later this afternoon.
As it stands, Lyla Nell is wearing a pink gingham dress with matching bows in each of her pigtails and the cutest white sandals you ever did see. I managed to wrangle the boys in matching miniature gray suits with blue gingham ties. The two of them with Lyla Nell are just too adorable. But truth be told, I haven’t got a single decent picture of them yet, and the boys already have that disheveled after prom look going on.
“I’ve never seen this much pink and blue in one place,” Lainey continues. “It’s like being inside a giant Easter egg.”
“Or in one of Lot’s nurseries,” Meg quips, and they share a laugh on my behalf.
“I don’t see what’s so funny,” I say. “You both have babies, too.”
“Not three kids under two,” Charlie points out, looking ever so much like my twin, save a year younger. She bumps my shoulder with hers, and I shed a wry smile. “Besides, I think it’s beautiful,” she says with a shrug, even though she’s eyeing the inflatable bunny displays with a touch of suspicion. “Very... you know, corny and festive.”
“Festive is one word for it,” Keelie agrees, trying to keep little Bear from escaping toward the cotton candy stand. And honestly, I’m about to join him. “Overwhelming sugar coma is another.”
I nod her way, trying to juggle the twins while Lyla Nell bops around with Josie. “And you can bet I’ll be in a sugar coma before too long. Those Whitmore chocolate bunnies are already calling my name.”
“Me, too, bestie,” she says, bumping her fist with mine. Keelie and I have always shared a love of all things chocolate, sugar, flour, butter, and boys. It’s been a running theme for the last thirty years.
But I digress. The entire lot of us has gathered at this exact locale to do the unthinkable—get all of our children to sit and pose with the Easter Bunny himself—even if that Easter Bunny happens to be aWileyFox.
A giant white throne is set up on a patch of grass with the lake as the backdrop, and my mother is dressed like a pastel queen in a flowing lavender gown with an Easter lily crown that makes her look like she’s about to preside over the resurrection of spring itself. She tries her best to get our scattered family’s attention by belting out a sharp whistle that could probably summon bunnies from three counties away.
All eyes land on her as she raises her arms and flails. “Attention one and all, tall and small, I give you—the Easter Bunny!”
Wiley emerges from behind a cluster of inflatable Easter decorations wearing a giant white costume, oversized ears, and a head that makes him look like a character from every child’s nightmare. Wiley Fox is wearing what can only be described as the most terrifying bunny costume ever created by someone with a questionable understanding of children’s psychology.
The white furry suit is so oversized that it makes him look like a marshmallow that’s gained consciousness and developed anger management issues. The giant bunny head sits at an awkward angle that suggests either poor construction or the costume designer’s revenge against the holiday itself, and his enormous pink ears flop with each step in ways that defy both physics and good taste.
Pandemonium breaks out immediately.
The older kids—Josie, Bear, and Lyla Nell—take one look at this apparition and begin shrieking with the intensity of children who’ve just witnessed the arrival of the monster who lives under their bed. Their screams create a domino effect that spreads through the younger children, until we have a full-scale toddler uprising on our hands—including Lyla Nell and the twins.
Honestly, the twins’ howls can be heard on Mars. Everett is an overachiever, and so are his kids by proxy. Not that Lyla Nell isn’t trying. Even her adorable dimples are quivering.
“Oh, for Peter Cottontail’s sake,” Carlotta grunts. She’s wearing what appears to be a hot pink Easter bonnet that could double as a small aircraft carrier, complete with enough artificial flowers to supply a funeral home. “That overgrown bunny is an atrocity. That thing looks like it escaped from a horror movie about a deranged Easter Bunny who snacks on children and undercooked ham.”
Charlie gives a quick nod. “I happen to agree. I’m not a kid, and I’m certain I’m going to have nightmares tonight.”
“Maybe we should have gone with a smaller bunny,” Meg suggests with a dark laugh just as baby Piper begins to sob.
“Or no bunny at all,” Lainey adds, bouncing Mimi, who’s adding her voice to the chorus of terror.
“I don’t think the size is the problem,” Keelie says, as little Bear attempts to hide behind her legs. “I think it’s just the general concept of a six-foot bunny that’s freaking them out. Which, honestly, is fair.”
Charlie nods. “My brain does not have a folder for that.”
I nod as well. “Honestly, my brain doesn’t have a folder for half the things Wiley and my mother do, and all the other folders have been eaten up and spit out by the twins.” And Carlotta.
Everett and Noah stride up looking like sin wrapped in their Sunday best—dark stubble shadowing their jaws, lethal bodies poured into dress shirts that don’t stand a chance of hiding the steel abs underneath, and an air of dangerous competence that makes every woman in the vicinity forget what she’s doing.
