Ellie kind of gets the short end of things from time-to-time. A product of her spending her days at school and me being a stay-at-home dad with Ethan is that he gets to go and have adventures that she misses out on. While she's cool with it for the most part, there are definitely those instances where she feels tinges of jealousy towards her younger brother. As a parent, it's definitely hard to see that and not feel responsible. As a result, I try to include her in short errands that I have to run on evenings or weekends. While they may not be the most exciting things in the world, I like to think that it helps her and makes her feel valued.
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| A pretty accurate depiction of Ellie anytime she hears about Ethan and me having an adventure. |
All of that being said, there is one good thing about Ellie being older than Ethan and that is that sometimes she gets the opportunity to do something special later in the evening that Ethan wouldn't be allowed to stay up for. One of those things happened on Saturday night as Ellie and I headed to the "Light the Night" Easter Egg Hunt.
The key word in the name of that event is "Light" because that draws attention to the fact that this wasn't just any ordinary Easter Egg Hunt. Instead, it was a glow-in-the-dark Easter Egg Hunt taking place at night! The Hunt took place at Northland Cathedral, which is a church near our house. While we had seen the event advertised for several years, this was the first year that we felt Ellie was old enough to stay up and take part as the hunting portion of the evening doesn't even start until 8:30!
Around 7:45 pm, Ellie and I piled into the Traverse and drove the short distance to Northland Cathedral where we found ourselves in a huge throng of people. While I knew that this was a heavily attended event, I really didn't have any idea how popular it was. There were literally hundreds of people there! The first thing we did upon arriving was sign in and get Ellie's wristband which would assign her to one of three egg hunting courses based upon her age. Then, we wandered over to the main stage area (yes, there was literally a stage for this event!) and found a place to hang out until things began at 8:00.
Once 8:00 arrived, the Northland Cathedral Kids Dance Crew took the stage and proceeded to lead the audience in worship and dance. Following that, there was a drawing that took place for prizes. While Ellie was noticeably disappointed to not win, I was secretly relieved. After all, I don't know what she would do with a longboard skateboard or an electric scooter. Next on the event was Northland Cathedral's youth minister, Joe, who delivered a message for those in attendance. While I've already forgotten the message, I certainly remember the awesome science experiment that accompanied it which resulted in green foam exploding out of the largest beaker I have ever seen.
Finally, it was time for the Egg Hunt to being. Ellie took her place at her designated area and waited for the command to begin. While she waited patiently, I took a minute to gaze at all of the eggs, blinking and flashing under the dark night sky. Finally, the command was issued, and the kids were off. Before I knew what had happened, Ellie completely disappeared into the mass of humanity in a frantic search for eggs. As quickly as it began, the hunt was over. Ellie happily wandered back over to me with a bucket overflowing with glowing Easter Eggs. Her biggest fear heading into the Hunt was only getting one or two eggs and I was happy to see that her fear was unfounded.
With that, we headed to the car and headed home to take stock of Ellie's find and get her into bed as it was nearly 9:00 pm. While that's not late for some kids, it certainly is for ours. That being said, part of being the older sibling is getting the opportunity to occasionally break bedtime for a cool outing with Mom or Dad. Seems like a pretty good deal to me; doesn't it you?
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