THE CHOCOLATE CRUCIFIX AND OTHER UNHOLINESS

Um...I'm nobody's idea of pious, but is this over the line?

I would've snapped a picture of the originals that Noodle and Beast got from one of their grandmothers, but they've long since been gobbled up and the kids were so hopped up on chocoloate I have long since been through with being weirded out by a chocolate crucifix.

Nana let slip over the weekend that the Easter Bunny used to hide eggs with candy in them in my slippers when I was a lad. DAMMIT DAMMIT DAMMIT NO. We were hoping to minimize that aspect of Easter, just because the kids have had candy shoved at them at every turn for the better part of a week and it's all a bit much, especially since St. Patrick's Day has also been converted into a sweets-hoovering opportunity for kids. At least an early Easter means the next sugar-bombing doesn't happen until the Memorial Day parade. Here, kid - have a Tootsie Roll in memory of my Uncle Pete who died at Guadalcanal.

Or maybe Her Awesomeness and I should simply be glad that there's no Martin Luther King Day candy yet (ooh - a big rock candy mountaintop! And I have a Dreamsicle!).

This much is clear: next year, the Bunny is showing up during Easter Mass and not the night before, so that Mommy and Daddy can have their pancakes in relative peace.

STATIONS OF THE BUNNY

We've been trying to explain to Noodle, and eventually to Beast, that Easter isn't all about candy and eggs and those mall bunnies who always look like they spent the previous night in an epic blunt-off with Willie and Snoop, e.g.:

Duuuuude. Whoooooa.

So getting beyond the bunny-stuff means explaining Jesus Christ as best we can, and handling questions like "what's spurged mean?" Er, that's 'scourged', my little love. Like we really wanted to go there with a four-year-old. Thank you for that charming contribution to punitive history, Roman Empire.

Then came "They put NAILS in his HANDS?!"

Yes, and this is why Daddy tells you to stay away from his tools.

This kid and her powers of observation, I swear. Next time we're in church we're not sitting anywhere near that particular Station of the Cross.

How come other Catholics with four-year-olds get way cuter Good Friday questions while we're stuck with a three-foot-nine Helen Thomas asking about hyssop? Noodle might be taller than the actual Helen Thomas at this point, but I digress. We tried to distill Easter down to the basics and gently steer away from the gruesome bits, but no.

Maybe it's best to give up while we're behind and let the lads handle the issue: