Take away my Mommy Badge...

The Easter my little boy was 3, that was the first year that he'd have a clue about baskets, eggs, etc... so of course we wanted to take him to an egg hunt! Our church didn't happen to do them, but we got a flyer, somewhere, about an Easter Egg hunt in a local park.

I made sure I had the day off, and we made plans to be there. I got him a basket, took the camera, everything. We pulled up to the park, and there were almost NO cars there, and just a few people milling about, cleaning up. Clearly we'd missed the Egg Hunt.

I took the flyer, and approached one of the ladies there. The flyer said 1:00, and it was only 12:40. She looked at it, and said, "Oh. Yeah. No. That's a misprint. It was at 10:00. Sorry."

We got back in the car, went to the CVS or someplace, BOUGHT some (discounted!) Easter treats when the boy wasn't looking, took them home, and the next morning, he got to do a "hunt" in the front yard. He was 3; like he knew the difference! But how many egg hunts does a kid get in life?

So last year, he was 4, and knew what was what! I was determined to get it right, this time. The drop-off for my daughter's school was adjacent to a church. This church had a LARGE banner dropped from their sign, reading, "Community Easter Fair! Everyone is Welcome! Saturday, April (whatever), Children and Families, Egg Hunt, Activities, Crafts,..."

I thought, "Perfect!", and made plans for us to be there.

We arrived at the advertised time, but there didn't seem to be many people around. We wandered around the church campus for a while, and people were setting things up, but they clearly weren't ready for children to participate. We got back in the car, and waited until we saw other children arriving.

We got out, and kind of followed those kids, but no one seemed to know what was going on, and no one seemed to be in charge, or to be directing traffic in any way. We watched some lady do an educational experiment with a system of pulleys, which she let the kids try. My son drew with some chalk on the sidewalk. But there still didn't seem to be any sort of system going on. It was very random.

We ended up in what I guess was their fellowship hall, and teens were busy stuffing eggs on tables. If you were having an egg hunt at 11:00, wouldn't you have the eggs stuffed before 10:10? Whatever. We approached a table where the kids could color an Easter picture. The lady said, "Where is his band?"

"Ma'am?"

"His band. All the kids need a band to show what group they're in."

"I see. Where does he get a band?" I asked.

"Didn't you get one when you signed him up?" she queried.

"Um...I didn't know I had to sign him up..."

"Oh, my, yes. There was Pre-Registration. Didn't you sign him up?"

"But the sign outside just says, 'Everyone Welcome', " I pointed out the window where we could see the banner. "It doesn't mention any registration required."

"Well, there's only 100 spots. You'll have to ask if you can register him today, but I don't know if So-and-so is here, yet..."

She indicated a table at the far end of the hall, where there were children and parents milling about, and several folks seated, with papers arrayed in front of them. I walked over there, and with a fair amount of effort, attracted the attention of one of the table-sitters.

"Um...Hi. I didn't know I was supposed to sign my son up ahead of time... Is there a fee to participate?"

"Oh. No. It's free, but there was Pre-Registration required."

And he turned away and greeted the next kid, saying cheerfully, "Hi! What's your name?", and looking at the papers taped to the table.

I had been dismissed. No offer to GET him signed in. No offer to LET him sign in. Nothing. The man wouldn't look at me again.

(I'm sorry, but if I am sitting at a table, in the midst of a children's party, and a cute little boy is staring at me, not understanding why the lady at the coloring table wouldn't give him a beastly crayon, I am bloody well going to DO something for him. I mean, c'mon!) And it's not like we looked like homeless people or anything. Clearly we were functioning members of society. How unhelpful can people BE? And this was not the DMV. This was a church.

It wouldn't have been so bad if we hadn't already had an Egg Hunt Failure from the year previous. And if I had felt that there was an error on my part, then I wouldn't have been so stunned. But I walked to the balcony that ran around the outside of the hall, and I looked down at the sign for the 84th time since it had gone up.

It absolutely did NOT say that the kids needed to pre-register for this event. But there we were, children milling about with their little colored wrist-bands, people greeting one another all around us, no one speaking to us, no one even looking at us. We did not exist, because my son did not have a wrist-band. Couldn't GET a wrist-band. Would not BE getting a wrist-band, evidently.

I walked back to where my husband and daughter were standing, waiting, and I was barely able to speak. You know that burning sensation that happens in the base of your throat, before it gets up to your eyeballs, and you can feel that you are about to cry? I was fighting it with everything I had, because I didn't want to embarrass them, and I didn't want my boy to see me upset.

(At this writing, my palms have slicked, thinking about it.)

I croaked out, "We just need to go... right now. He can't... they won't... just... let's go. Please. Now."

I had got it wrong, AGAIN. And although neither incident was exactly my fault, I still felt that I had failed my son in some way. He was in the back of the car, asking why they wouldn't let him play there, why we had to leave, why he wasn't going to get any eggs, why the lady wouldn't let him color, why... why...

I felt at that moment like they could take away my Mommy Badge, and I wouldn't fight them.