The snow has melted, Spring is here and my daughter is batty with Easter bunny lust. Easter is a big thing here. My English childhood memories revolve around the consumption of vast quantities of chocolate often followed by close inspection of the toilet bowl and a humiliating telling off.
Here it's eggs of the painted kind that get the ankle biters all of a tizz. Germans love any chance to decorate their homes and Easter is no exception. Vases are filled with twigs and branches and adorned with painted and dyed eggs. Outside, the trees don't get a reprieve either. Most are bending under the weight of hundreds of multi-coloured eggs and it's a sight to behold. Even the hardest heart couldn't fail to be filled with the joys of Spring.
All lovely, but have you ever had to blow an egg?
I had to look it up on the Internet. Christian was dispatched to buy eggs and I began with fake confidence but good Northern determination. Embarrassingly, after a few red faced, breathless attempts that resulted in the beginnings of an unplanned omelette, Finje took over and produced, much to my husband's amusement, a perfect hollow egg. Apparently, she had learned how to do it in kindergarten!
Suitably humbled and struggling to retrieve a modicum of parental pride I swiftly moved the exercise on to painting. At this time of year the supermarkets are stuffed full of egg painting paraphernalia. Crayons, dyes, special paints that create a marbled effect, the list goes on. It's like B&Q for egg decorating specialists.
On the big day, eggs of the chocolate and painted variety are hidden in various places in the garden and the children, basket in hand, go off on their own personal search and rescue mission. This year I will however, hide the eggs in places relevant to the investigative abilities of a four year old. Last year I overdid it a bit and was faced with a mutinous mini being unable to find our rather too well hidden eggs. This year Easter falls on Finje's birthday, a double whammy! I'm preparing myself for a sugar loaded, maniacal, fruit-loop of a child. Thank goodness we'll be at the grandparents! Safety in numbers I say.
It's worth pointing out that the word egg in German is also a commonly used slang word for testicle! After our jolly day of handicrafts, Finje called her grandmother and proudly informed her that she had blown her daddy's eggs, painted them and hung them up in the tree outside.
I actually nearly peed myself.