only Easter

If the Easter bunny is not dead, tomorrow I shall have to kill him. For the chocolate rabbit in the basket to my left came from the market in Milwaukee, and I will be telling that story. "See, child, you got a souvenir. And, by the way, the chocolate covered Oreos were delicious. Perhaps there's even one left in the kitchen." Though I might have to leave that part out. That basket is already a sugar coma in waiting, and those cookies are really very good. Were.

Holidays, for the "lonely child" can be a bit of a spectacle. Or just a little odd. For Easter lunch we will go to my mother's, as always. And as always my brother will have a basket for her, though he knows she gets one at home. And as always the only grandchild, only niece, only everything will go out in the brown Zoysia plain of her grandparents' back yard and hunt for eggs, as much as one can hunt amongst the dormant azaleas and unplowed garden spot that provide the only relief from the flat stretches of dead grass so early in the year. Solo, except for the familial paparazzi. Ridiculous on so many levels, except normal just the same. I suppose that's what family is for.

This week she got a little taste of what most of us know, what it's like to keep being related when you're sick of it. After spending the better part of three days with one of her cousins, a boy a little more than a year older, she got the news that out of necessity he would be coming to spend the night with us the next day. He's not her favorite cousin, but she'd had a great time at his house, and they get along fine. His arrival wasn't dreaded, but it wasn't really welcomed. "He was already starting to get annoying in the car," she said, after I shared the change in plans. For a moment, it was almost as if she had a brother. Perhaps, I thought, this could be my new strategy, the way for her to understand what she's not really missing. Serially invite cousins to stay, and then when everyone's ready for them to go home, have them stay a little longer!

Except really, it's not the same. For better or worse, there's no relationship quite like being a sibling, and yes she has been denied it. This came clear to me when I overheard that twelve year-old boy ask my daughter if they could play with her Littlest Pet Shop toys as she sat down to watch the Apprentice (neither one of us could believe it). No way that exchange happens between brother and sister except as a prelude to a joke or a tease. So much for the cousin theory, on so many levels; so much for knowing about normal.