Ever since the beginning of the year, I have been looking forward to Easter weekend. A friend announced that she was getting married the day before Easter. The wedding is four hours away in a very small town. About 30 miles from the town is a very nice resort that I wanted to experience. I made reservations for four days at the resort and looked forward to going on our first vacation as a family. The resort offered an Easter Egg Hunt and pictures with the Easter Bunny. As a new parent, this was something I desperately wanted to experience. With the stress of having a newborn in the house and the stress of that newborn being sick for two months including a five day hospital stay, the whole family needed this vacation.

A week before the trip, Andrew contracted the flu but the doctor seemed to think that he would be well enough to travel by Friday. He responded well to the Tamiflu and did improve but his old respiratory symptoms that he has had for the last two months came back. We took him to the doctor and decided to cancel the trip. I was disappointed but I will always do what is best for my family.

The weather for Easter weekend was lovely and Andrew was feeling better. I was determined to find an Easter Bunny to take pictures with. I looked in the paper to see what events were happening. The one that really caught my eye was a Easter Egg Hunt at a farm about 20 miles from the house. After running our Saturday errands, we drove out to the farm. On the way, I saw an Easter Bunny waving at drivers at another farm that sells plants.

We got there about 30 minutes before the Easter Egg Hunt and I realized that there were way too many people here for me to try and battle them all with infant in toe to find eggs. We opted to eat the hot dogs and walk around a bit. Andrew was fascinated with watching all the kids rooting around for eggs and I got a couple of nice pictures. The announcer kept talking about an Easter Bunny but all we saw was someone in a chicken outfit. It did not look like we were going to find a bunny to take pictures with. I certainly did not want pictures with an Easter Chicken.

I said to Jen, “Let’s go back to that roadside Easter Bunny” and she agreed.

We drove to the other farm which was actually in the same direction as home. It’s a cute place and not nearly as large but they had a petting zoo and Jen is in love with all animals (think hamsters on YouTube). We spent time with the animals. It looked like the bunny was there to attract business and not necessarily there to greet kids and have his picture taken.

So, I did the only thing a self-respecting dad would do. I broke out of my socially awkward shell and mustered up enough courage to ask the Bunny if we could take a picture with him. This required quite a bit of emotional energy and I suspect I’ll be doing more things like this in the future.