Our oldest, Georgia, was asking last night before she went to bed if parents really were the Easter Bunny. She’s 8 and so smart it’s scary so it didn’t surprise us that she was asking those questions. She looked at my wife directly and said “Mommy, do parents put the candy in the basket?” Kari looked at me, grimaced, and said “We’ll tell you the truth if you want to know it” and Georgia nodded her head and said yes.
My wife whispered to her “yes” and Georgia just laughed and said “Mom! Tell me the truth!” to which Kari said yes again and the cycle repeated for a while. Eventually, we asked her what she wanted to believe and she said that she wanted to believe the Easter Bunny was real, so we left it at that.
Today, she kept pestering us on the whole thing. I could tell she knew and finally, just a little while ago, she once again asked us to tell her the truth about the Easter Bunny. We told her to wait until her sister went to bed, and she was just dying to hear. Again, my wife asked her if she wanted the truth and if she could handle it and she was giddy and said yes.
I told her “Georgia, would you like to meet the Easter Bunny?” We got a nod. “Look to your left, now to your right. We’re the Easter Bunny.”
Turns out, she didn’t want to know the truth. There were tears. I felt awful.
At this point, it’s just the Easter Bunny. I believe, sadly, that Santa will not survive this year either. Irelyn, being only 5, will still believe for another year or so insofar as her sister can avoid spilling the beans, but it’s a sad thing to watch a part of her childhood die away like that, especially when we misread her queues and thought she was ready when she was not.
Oh well. Parenting doesn’t come with a manual and we don’t always get it right.