I LOVE the Easter holiday.  First and foremost,  I love the holiday and the reason for the holiday.  Aside from that,  I love the newness of Spring and the weather that generally accompanies it.  I love the hard shelled Cadbury eggs that come out every year.  I love couple (and I really mean couple) of days of vacation that we get, one day on either side of the weekend.  I love dressing my kids up in matching outfits and dragging them to church all looking the same.  I think they secretly love it.

However, one thing that I am getting disenchanted with,  is the whole concept of Easter Baskets.  This is a new experience for me, as I used to really enjoy putting together Easter Baskets for my kiddos.  I used to know exactly what I would put in there:  sweets, juices, clothes, bubbles, small toys, crackers, clothes, shoes, etc.   However, this year was different.

As Easter day approached, I was really dragging my feet with putting together baskets for the kids.  Here is why.  They don’t need ANYTHING that gets put into those baskets.  NONE of it.  I would never buy that much candy for my kids to have complete dominion over.   They don’t need any more toys.  They don’t need any more junk.  That is what it ends up being…..  just junk that gets broken, lost, stained or eaten within an hour of discovering their baskets.  To boot, they get expensive, very expensive!  It is amazing how much little things add up!  I usually end up spending at least $150 on Easter between clothes, candy, shoes, eggs, baskets, filling, etc.  UGH!  It is so much money that could go towards something else instead of that could be useful to our family.

I can’t abandon the idea of Easter baskets completely.  I still have two great believers in the home, and I am sure that at least one of them will believe for a very very long time.  Love that Kaeson  of mine!   He will forever believe.  He still writes letters to Santa, the Elves, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, and any other imaginary creature that might be able to receive mail.

So, this year, I thought that I would do something different.  I thought that we could go a little adventure crazy and go the route of getting something for the family instead of Easter Baskets.  I figured that the kids were old enough to move past the basket idea.  My kids have been wanting a pet for a very long time and were devastated when our pet toad passed away at Christmastime.  A pet would be a perfect idea for an Easter surprise.  My friend, Loren, had bought bunnies for her kiddos, and I wasn’t ready for that commitment, but I thought a fish might be an amazing idea for our family.

While the kids were away for a little bit on Saturday, I found myself on my way to the pet store.  In my head, I thought, if the adoption truck is there, maybe it would be a sign that I was to maybe look beyond a fish.  Low and behold!  There was the truck.

I wandered to the back of the store and looked at what they had for adoption.  Kaeson’s therapist has been trying to get me to get him a dog for a while.  He thinks it would be a great opportunity for Kaeson and that it would help him calm and even out his mood swings.  There in the back of the store, was the adoption area, with about a dozen cats and half a dozen dogs.

There in one little dog run was this adorable little dog named Baby Bear.  He was little, and cute and immediately caught my eye.  I was determined to find something wrong with him so as to talk myself out of him.  I read his bio page.  He was 6 months old and wasn’t going to get much bigger.   He wasn’t a shelter dog, but had been at a chihuahua foster home for several months with a family.  He was fully potty trained and his vocal cords never fully developed so his bark was soft.  His foster family had written a note saying what his training what they had done with him.  The specifically said, he had “no baggage to unlearn.”

Oh boy, I was in trouble.  Not only was he the perfect size, but he was adorable and had no baggage (how would that be?)  The price tag was a little steep, but I actually considered it.  I called the kids dad and proposed the idea and asked him if he would be willing to be supportive and go in half on it with me.  Of course he wasn’t, but I tried.  I did manage to get hm to bring the kids over for a couple of minutes to at least see him before I went down that road.

He told the kids that they were coming over to see a Bearded Dragon (his honest idea of a pet the kids could cuddle with and he was more than happy to go half on that.)  Kyra and Kelton, thinking that they were going to get a lizard went straight to the lizard cages.  Kaeson, walked straight to the back, where the dogs were.  He saw Baby Bear and sat down in front of his kennel and started talking to him.  He was enchanted.  After a few minutes, the kids left, but my mind was made up.  I sat down to fill out his adoption papers.

Just as I finished and Baby Bear was being handed over to me, the adoption clerk got a phone call and her whole face changed.  She hung up the phone and looked at me and told me that I couldn’t adopt him.  I was rather stunned.  She said that there had been an outbreak of Parvo at the shelter and that he, and the rest of the dogs,  had to be quarantined until they were sure that they hadn’t been infected.  Oh my heart broke.  I handed him back and was told that they would call me if and when he was put up for adoption again.

So, here is where we are.  I guess in a way, it is a good thing because I have several days to consider whether or not I can really handle a dog in my life and in my home.  I called the shelter today.  They do have me as the person who is going to adopt him.  He will be in quarantine until April 5th.  And yes, I did have to go out and get Easter Baskets for all of the kids… totaling over $100 as even the simplest things aren’t cheap when you buy them in multiples of 3.  So, my perfectly laid plan to overthrow the Easter Basket was overthrown, and my idea to not have a pet is right behind it.