Show me the bunny

7 April 2010

There’s a lot to catch up with this morning, and I only have a little time to write. It’s 7:02 in the morning, and T’s turn on baby morning duty. Usually this would mean I get to lie in until the luxurious hour of, say, 8am, but instead I’ve slipped off downstairs to write. For some reason I feel guilty about it, like I’m pulling a sicky from work.

Anyway, before I get on to what happened yesterday at R’s assessment, it’s worth noting that last Sunday was Easter and we took the kids to our neighbours the N---s for their annual Easter Egg hunt party. The N---s are toffs like T’s family (the two families have known each other for years, and T's dad is WN's godfather), and they’re always having parties with dozens of louche, semi-bohemian posh folk and their children of many ages are milling around, drinking, and playing either ping-pong, snooker, football, rugby, cricket or all of the above at once. I used to find the whole scene kind of intimidating and too sporty and posh by half, but I’ve got to know them better now and rather enjoy the hugger-mugger muddle of it all.

As per tradition, on Sunday the grown-ups and the older kids all ran around the N---s’ several acres of garden hiding Easter eggs for the little kids, and when the signal was given, WN (our host, who’s like a golden retriever in human form) set off the children in batches according to the year they were born, which meant E was one of the first to get going having been born in 2008. Me and my very dear friend A, who I used to squat with back in the day and is now one of R’s godparents, herded E toward the Easter eggs while T wrangled R.

In brief, they did great. Even at 18 months (well, I guess it’s 19 now), E totally grasped the whole looking-for-chocolate concept, and so did R.

He’s been weirdly obsessed with eggs, as in chicken eggs, for a while. He can’t stand the taste of the real thing but of course loves chocolate ones. If he spots a box of chicken eggs in the kitchen during a meal he has to try to get to them, even though the result is usually so disappointing, much like life itself. But this time it was all win-win, and he found lots (with assistance) and stuffed as many as he could in his mouth as he went along. At one point he found a chocolate rabbit and I had to take a picture of him. “Show me the bunny!” I shouted, pace “Jerry Maguire.” (Tom Cruise movies have strangely evolved into a sub-theme on this blog.)

Later, E and R played exceedingly happily on the N---s’ trampoline with half a dozen other kids jumping all around them. (For some reason, my children just don’t get how to jump with both feet simultaneously.) E sat in the middle, still shovelling bits of chocolate in her mouth, grinning from to ear with joy at being bounced, while R ran around the outside, occasionally making a lunge to pull another child’s hair but, reassuringly, pulling back right in time if he said his name warningly.

From a distance he would have seemed totally normal, just another little boy tweeking on chocolate overload. At one point he wandered into the huge 50-man football match that was in progress, completely delighted to be chasing the ball and everyone negotiated around him. It reminded me of a time when I went to go see a rugby between Scotland and France (one of the dullest two-hour stretches of my life, since I have no idea how the game is supposed to be played). One of the France supporters released a chicken onto the pitch. It just flapped around contentedly the whole game, flying into the air whenever players or the ball came near. R is like that chicken.