No Chocolate Easter Bunnies Here!

It all started last October. We were completely ill equipped to handle Elle’s first Halloween in which she trick-or-treated (read: amassed ridiculous amounts of sugary garbage that shouldn’t be considered fit for human consumption). I’m not sure why it didn’t occur to me, that despite her previously healthy relationship with candy (we just never had any in the house), having an entire bucket of it in the kitchen was going to be too much for her 4 year old self to resist. Consequently, after every single breakfast, lunch, and dinner we were subjected to “may I please have candy for dessert… please Please PLEASE!?!” We were forced to implement a “no asking for candy” rule… if she asks for candy, she can be sure the answer will be no. However, I don’t want to create a sweet obsessed fiend who sneaks candy into her pockets any time it’s within arms reach, so if she can contain herself for a day or two in a row we’ll offer her sweets of some kind (we get pretty creative… she thinks tic tacs are some of the best candies around). I simply MUST figure out a creative way to get Elle to give up her candy stash next Halloween. I’ve heard ideas like giving them a dollar per pound turned in, donating it to soldiers, or throwing it away little by little each day (I’d really prefer not to resort to trickery). Let me know if you’ve heard/tried something that worked. So with Easter quickly approaching, all I could think about was how much I HATE CANDY HOLIDAYS!!!

I decided to be bold, and forgo candy all together in Elle’s Easter basket. I knew I was going to have to come up with something good if I stood a chance of contending with the “my friends all got chocolate Easter bunnies… where’s mine?!” line of questioning. I had been mulling it around for a few days when one of my most favorite blogs, Ikatbag, posted a new pattern she created for… you guessed it… a stuffed chicken that lays eggs that hatch baby chicks!! What?? You didn’t guess that? I stopped just short of jumping up and down and squealing with delight when I saw it. It was so perfect! Elle’s favorite subjects to pretend to be are always animals, and often chickens, she had just been clucking and “laying eggs” on the couch the night before.

This is a picture I was playing with using the color splash app on my new "precious" a.k.a. iPhone:

This was my first attempt at making a stuffie. I was a little hesitant at first, especially because LiEr of Ikatbag is an amazing seamstress, she’s the real deal, and I figured nothing I made, even if it was her pattern, would turn out nearly as well as hers. But I managed to find some quiet time alone with my sewing machine and jumped right in. I couldn’t be happier with how Petunia turned out! She’s just the right size for cuddling, her chickadees sparked a faint memory of my Mom teaching me the French knot when I was young, and the look on Elle’s face when she realized there were chicks in the eggs Petunia laid… oh it was so sweet… not one single time did she even mention candy or chocolate Easter bunnies… mission accomplished!