{"id":12601,"date":"2018-03-23T14:06:37","date_gmt":"2018-03-23T19:06:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/?p=12601"},"modified":"2018-03-23T14:06:37","modified_gmt":"2018-03-23T19:06:37","slug":"spoiler-alert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/2018\/03\/23\/spoiler-alert\/","title":{"rendered":"Spoiler Alert"},"content":{"rendered":"

W<\/span>e\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re standing in WalMart, of all places. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even like WalMart and almost never shop there. But we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re in WalMart and we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve just walked past several rows of pastel-coloured Easter goodies, and it twinges something I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been thinking about.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Hey Lucas,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I begin, leaning down to be closer to his 10 year old ear. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have to lean far. When did he get to be as tall as my shoulder anyway?<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Lucas, um, I was wondering, do you know\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I stall. Maybe I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m happier not having this conversation. But he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s watching me now, as we continue on to the back of the store.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Well, I was wondering. You, uh, you know that there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not actually a giant rabbit who comes into the house and hides the Easter candies and the eggs, right? I mean, you know who it is, right?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I blurt in a rush of words, still not convinced I want to have this conversation after all. What if I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve misread him? What if I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve just ruined this for him? Why exactly did I start this conversation?<\/p>\n

Lucas is not, to my relief, devastated. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Yup,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he confirms, casually shattering our shared delusion. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Granny!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Each year, my mother spends hours hiding treats around her place for the boys, and making up lists of clues for them to follow. Before I can clarify, he continues. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153And I know that you and Dad are Santa Claus, too. I heard you filling the stockings.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

I can only nod, a lump of mingled relief and regret swelling in my throat.<\/p>\n

So I guess that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s that. I mean, we were never very insistent on the whole Easter Bunny thing, but Santa has been a different story. The older boys have always been careful to never explicitly confirm or deny believing in Santa Claus, and I avoided asking them about it, lest I open Pandora\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s box for Christmas. <\/p>\n

It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s easier now that we can be open about hiding the candy and eggs, of course. I can even solicit the boys to help stuff the plastic eggs full of jelly beans and marshmallow bunnies after we paint our colourful eggs. And Christmas Day will be much more pleasant if I haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t stayed up until all hours on Christmas Eve, trying to outlast them so I can fill their stockings on Santa\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s behalf.<\/p>\n

It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the end of a thing, though. Another of the thousand little changes that mean that they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re growing up. It will be easier, but it will be harder, too. Easter candy this year is a little bit bittersweet.<\/p>\n

\"Family<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re standing in WalMart, of all places. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even like WalMart and almost never shop there. But we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re in WalMart and we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve just walked past several rows of pastel-coloured Easter goodies, and it twinges something I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been thinking about. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Hey Lucas,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I begin, leaning down to be closer to his 10 year old ear. … Continue reading “Spoiler Alert”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ah-me-boys","category-mothering-without-a-licence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12601"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12601\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12604,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12601\/revisions\/12604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}