Little Surprises

This weekend, my family got together and celebrated Easter. The younger folk took part in an Easter egg hunt set up by the parents of these youngsters. The kids went wild looking for the eggs. There was lots of crying and lots of laughing, however all in all they had a good time.

One of the younger children, a three-year-old nephew, marveled at his siblings and cousins finds. He would peek into their baskets and smile. He was in no rush to procure his own eggs, but loved watching everyone else have a good time. All in all he found three eggs. One of them, he stumbled upon by accident. I watched as he stepped through the garden to once again peek into his sister’s basket and then look down to see what he had stepped on.  He picked up a pastel colored plastic egg, decided it might be worth keeping and put it into his basket. Once in his basket, he ventured further and continued peeking into his the baskets of his competitors, but never touching nor removing the eggs that were already claimed.

When they came back to count their finds, I noticed that even the two year old niece had found more eggs than he did. All of the kids were showing off their treasures to one another. He opened his plastic eggs to find candy. However, the one egg that he stumbled upon had a hidden surprise. It was the one egg that held a gift certificate to a local toy store–donated by yours truly!!  His eyes widened with delight when he recognized the emblem on the “golden” ticket. He yelled out something like “I found it,’  and then when he heard some of the other kids groan, he added “but I will share” and with that he tucked it into his pockets.

I’m taking him tomorrow  to spend his treasure. Without even trying, he found something  he didn’t know he wanted. And in this little event, I also found my own surprise. Good things come to those who wait.

I was so glad that he found the egg.