Grammy on the Go
By Karen Shadrach
Spring is here and Easter is around the corner. Get ready for an egg hunt! Many communities and churches sponsor egg hunts. Look for updated egg hunt information in local news and on community websites. The grandkids love to run and hunt to find as many eggs as possible.
If you decide to take your grandchildren to an egg hunt, make sure that they are dressed appropriately for the weather, which can be so unpredictable in the springtime. Most venues will run their egg hunts, no matter what the weather happens to be, and some will decide to move the hunt indoors. Again, always check your city’s website for up-to-date event information. Past egg hunts for us have included wearing boots, hats and mittens. Also, make sure your grandchild has brought a basket or bag to collect their eggs. If a small child, have a size-appropriate basket, or the eggs will fall out as soon as they stoop to pick up additional eggs! (This happens a lot at egg hunts, and the children get terribly upset!) Our children preferred to take a small plastic bucket for their eggs, since the bucket’s steep sides hold the eggs well.
You can have an egg hunt in your own house or yard! Our annual egg hunt has become one of those traditions that grows more meaningful each year, even as the kids grow taller and faster and a little more clever about where to look. Plastic eggs can be filled with candy, such as small chocolates or jellybeans. Candy alternatives can include stickers, small toys or money. I have placed star stickers in a few of the eggs to indicate that the finders would receive a larger than egg-sized prize at the hunt’s completion. I always think I’ve hidden the eggs in tricky places, but kids have a way of surprising you. The youngest found the first one—bright blue, tucked right into the crook of a tree root. She held it up like she’d discovered gold. The older ones went straight for the “expert-level” spots: behind flowerpots, under the porch steps, and in the branches of the lilac bush that’s just starting to bud. What I love most isn’t the competition, though. It’s the way they help each other without even thinking about it. One of them spotted an egg on top of the birdbath and lifted the littlest one so she could reach it. Another traded a candy-filled egg for one with stickers because he knew his sister loved them. These tiny moments—these flashes of kindness—are the real treasures.
When all the eggs have been found, you can then count everyone’s eggs and give a prize to the child with the greatest number of eggs. To increase the number of winners, you can award a prize to the child that collects the most of one specific color of egg. For smaller children, leave eggs out in the open where they can easily be seen and gathered. As they get older, you can hide the eggs in increasingly difficult places for a more challenging hunt.
But what if your grandchildren are widely spread in ages, such as 3- and 12-year-olds? To include both ages in the same hunt, and to ensure plenty of eggs and fun for all, use two different colored eggs. For example, lay yellow eggs out so the young ones can easily find the eggs, and hide blue eggs, hidden in harder to find areas, for the older ones. Of course, you could also hold separate egg hunts for each of the age groups. You can allow the older children to set out the eggs for the younger ones. Our 9-year-olds think it is fun to “hide” the eggs for their 7-year-old sisters.
Traditions like this remind me how lucky I am to watch them grow, to be part of their memories, and to see the world through their eyes—bright, curious, and full of wonder. Egg hunts are fun, even though they may take a bit of prep time and seem to be over within a few minutes. However, more than eggs are collected… good memories are, too!
Photos by Karen Shadrach
