Easter, 2012

Easter season snuck up on us quickly this year - as usual, time is flying by way too quickly. 

2012 marked Luke's first ever picture with the Easter Bunny. I know - I'm the Mother of the Century. But in my defense: 

1. I find the shopping mall Easter Bunny inherently creepy. I also dislike costumed mascots. Perhaps these things are related...
2. Our mall Santa experiences - particularly in the post-autism diagnosis era - have been awful. The noise, the waiting, the angst of taking a good picture once you finally do have your precious minute with Santa... these are stressful for every parent, but when you're kiddo's on the autism spectrum, the tension reaches another level. Luke had a craptacular experience with the Bass Pro Santa this year, so between that and the fact that I find the Easter Bunny a furry, creepy weirdo? I'm out. 

BUT...

This year, I learned about Ability Path's Caring Bunny. If you are a fellow autism mommy or mother to any child with a disability, you must, must, must register on abilitypath.org and set up reminders for their Caring Bunny and Caring Santa events in your phone. (I literally took a break from writing this post and set up reminders in my phone for this Christmas and Easter 2013.) I cannot begin to tell you how positive of an experience this is. 

First, it's held before the mall is open. (Down side: we missed church for this.) We got there, and we had a number. There were tables set up with snacks and coloring pages and STICKERS (a Luke fave right now, much to the dismay of my furniture), so he had stuff to mess with while he awaited his turn.

Once it was his turn? We got access to the Easter Bunny. Just us - no crowd of people in line behind us. This was FANTASTIC. It gave Luke time to check out the bunny*, assess his surroundings, and get comfortable enough to take a picture. 

And behold: the final product! It's kind of a stink face Luke's making there, but is he crying? NO! Is he actually looking at the camera? YES! It's an Easter miracle! 

*But I still maintain that bunny's creepy.


He even tolerated the corny mall rabbit ears after the experience, even wearing them for a decent portion of the car ride home! 

Anyway, what a blessing this was to have a traditional holiday experience without the stress and angst that goes along with it. Hooray for Ability Path! 


On Easter morning, Luke had a fun basket full of goodies! 

And he got in his Sunday best to go to church. (Isn't he precious? I love how serious he looks. For what it's worth, that shirt was untucked within about 0.00052 seconds of my taking this picture.)

After church we went to Honey and Grand's and had fun with all the Calvert cousins and family. No really... we did. I just didn't document it with pictures. 

Yep. Mother of the Century. 

Hope you and yours had a blessed Easter, too!