What a big couple of days it is in the lifetime of toddlers this Easter thing is. It’s almost as big as Christmas, only with chocolate not plastic toys.

It started Friday morning with a small gathering of the toddler mafia that Little Miss is a part of - that group of toddlers and their mum’s that have been together for 3 years now - all I can say is don’t mess with the toddler mafia, they are brutal and unforgiving.

Friday’s gathering was centered around an Easter egg hunt. I’ve got to say that both the greediest and most easiest satisfied beast in the world appears to be the threenager. Little Miss must have things when she wants them, and she generally wants things instantly, but once she has what she wants it is instant calm and satisfaction. They were all the same during the easter egg hunt - they instantly wanted eggs, but the minute they had one they stopped, peeled it, ate it and then looked for a second.

It was surreal to watch the littler kids practically standing in a pool of easter eggs paying no attention to them whatsoever while they ate the one they had. The older kids of course did not even stop to count the booty until they had picked up every egg they could spy, even if it meant knocking over a slow moving toddler to get to the prize.

Friday afternoon was spent trying to wrestle Easter eggs off of Little Miss while at the same time preparing for the next days festivities. It just happened to be Wife’s birthday on Easter Saturday and a cake had to be made. Of course Wife thought it would be amusing to let the toddler pick the cake knowing that I would have to bake it or face the wrath of a tantruming toddler. So how did I do? Did I manage to pull it off or was it a complete disaster. Well all I will say now is that the internet proved useless for hints on ‘tieing up doll hair’ at 2:00am in the morning - and I won’t even tell you some of the sites that little search string turned up. If you are desperate to know how it turned out, I have a rare picture at the end of the post.

Today of course was Easter Sunday, and we currently have more chocolate in the hourse than a kleptomaniac Oompah Loompah. I won’t bore people with the details of all the coming and goings, but I will point out the following hints:

1. Don’t try and explain Easter to a three year old, their only concern is eggs and they are likely to make that plainly clear when they tell you that ‘That’s ok, the Easter Bunny will bring Jebus some chocolate as well’.

2. If you are going to gnaw on a carrot to pretend to a toddler that the Easter Bunny has indeed visited and was grateful for the snack then do ensure you wash it first - it was yucky.

3. If leaving chocolates besides the toddlers bed to find when she first wakes up, make sure that you wake up first otherwise you will find a chocolate covered toddler in their bed. If you can put up with that pain though it is at least one way to ensure that the toddler lets you have a sleep in for a little while.

4. Always underestimate the amount of eggs you should buy a child, because every adult relative they have will feel obliged to buy them a chocolate bunny or egg until you literally have to get a seperate box to pack them in to bring them all home.

5. Finally, the most important piece of advice, DON’T try and steal a piece of chocolate from a toddlers egg - they WILL notice and it is NOT worth the tantrum. Believe me.

The other highlight of the weekned was that the baby Usurper celebrated turning 9 months old by pulling itself up to a stand. This does not bode well for family harmony.

Anyway, back to the cake and how it went. We made a Princess Shazza cake as this is the one that Little Miss insisted had to be made for Wife. The good news was that Little Miss insisted on helping, the bad news is that her help consisted of eating as much raw cake mix as she could get, then stealing some marshmallows before wandering off to watch Play School. The surprising news is that it didn’t turn out too bad even if I do say so myself!