Big A is an Easter egg hunting monster. He has always been a full-on, take life by the horns sort of kid. No fear, no moving slow. Take no prisoners…just charge in. Even when he was just 1 1/2 years old, he somehow managed to collect a full basket of eggs at the big community-wide hunts. He puts his head down and just goes!

Little A is more reserved. He’s 2 1/2 now, but he still isn’t sure what the egg hunting is all about. He gets excited but just turns in a circle looking and pointing at eggs instead of actually going to pick them up.

I decided that we would do a “trial run” hunting eggs this year for Little A’s sake. Luckily, there were two weekends full of hunts around KC, so we had some time to practice getting through a mob of 1000 kids and then time to go over a hunting strategy at home between weekends.

Here we are at the first event. Both wee beasts look ready to run. We talked strategy…fast to the middle of the field before the rest of the kids got there.

Just  a few more seconds…And the bell rings. It’s time to go!

As our Curious George zoo game says, “Go, go, go!”

Remember Big A’s “take no prisoners” approach to life? Well, in this case, he has a “take all eggs” approach. He couldn’t help himself and instead of running to the middle of the field, he stopped to collect eggs. Little A was trying to stay with his brother, so he was close but not picking anything up. He passed one right after another.

Soon, though, Little A decided to get down to business. I call it the “egg scramble” because they were running in opposite directions. The mob was closing in and I soon lost sight of Big A behind a swarm of parents also running with cameras and trying to keep an eye on their scrambling beasts.

Little A, being ever cautious, noticed within seconds that he couldn’t see Big A or me, so he stopped and turned around to find us. And by that time…it was over.

I think the entire hunt (or scramble) took about 90 seconds. A few thousand eggs gone in 90 seconds.

I gathered the beasts so we could appraise their haul.

Just as I expected, Big A did pretty well and was happy with his pile o’ loot. Nine eggs. Not bad since he veered from the plan of running to the middle. The slight delay in starting to grab eggs when the bell rang probably affected  his numbers.

Little A, on the other hand, was not so fortunate. And he knew it.

“Mom, I only got two eggs. Only two eggs, mommy!”

And this is why we had a practice run. All the way home, Big A and I had to cheer Little A up. We gave pep talks and tips for how to get more eggs next time.

I hope I have a happier picture to post later today.