We celebrated Easter today.  Not in a religious way.  We didn’t go to church (although my husband said he thought about it.)  But we did get dressed up and go Easter egg hunting in our yard.

This was Polina’s first Easter egg hunt.  I deliberately avoided public Easter egg hunts because Polina is new to this “sport” and I didn’t want her to be in competition with other kids.  Sure enough, when we embarked on the Easter egg hunt (with both cameras rolling, mine and Pete’s) Polina took her sweet old time.  She picked up an egg and opened it.  Then she picked up another egg and opened it.  I could see this would take a while.

“Polina, why don’t I hold the basket while you pick up the eggs?” I offered.

She let me hold the basket while she put in one or two eggs, but then she understood the concept.  She took the basket away from me and ran looking for the colored plastic eggs.

“More.  More,” she said after she picked up each one.

It’s interesting what we teach our children.  Here she was innocently picking up each egg and actually curious about what was inside of it.  In a few short minutes, we taught her how to find satisfaction in the facade.  She became busy finding the eggs first while her initial curiosity about its contents became secondary.

I may be reading too much into it, and that’s okay, because that’s the type of person I am.  Sometimes I overanalyze.  But then I see kids push each other down in a competitive spirit and I think we as a society need to do more analyzing about what we’re doing, and it starts with parenting.

Next year, I’m going to let her take her sweet old time, no matter how long it takes.

Here are a few pictures from the expedition

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