An Eggzact Science

I am predicting that, when the car doors open in my driveway a week from tomorrow, the kids will emerge with a single-minded mission: hunting Easter eggs.  As this will be my fourth Easter as Googie (and my first Easter as Googie of three), I have invested some thought in what types of hunters will be hopping along this year in the Bunny's tracks, retrieving those little plastic eggs crammed with goodies.  Over the past four Easters, I have noted several;  maybe some of them will sound familiar to you.

• Aesthetes love the eggs for their bright, pretty colors.  They are surface admirers only, rarely aware that the eggs open to reveal inside treasures.  Aesthetes love to shake the egg (jelly beans make a nice rattle) and slobber on it.  For them, egg hunting, like life in general, is an exciting sensory experience.  I am expecting Baby Bootsie, going on seven months old, to be an aesthete.
• Demolitionists (the category in which I am tentatively placing two-year-old Pooh) are into egg-cracking mechanics.  These are eggspertly adept at all the ways to open plastic eggs, including twisting, pulling, prying, biting, slamming them onto the floor, and throwing them against the wall.  These guys like action, no doubt about it, and what may be inside the egg is secondary.  Around demolitionists, only the most hale and hardy of eggs survive to see another Easter.
•  Obsessors always come in last at organized Easter egg hunts.  So enamored are they of each individual egg and its contents, they are content to contemplate and experience to the fullest the first egg they find.  Wearing their spiffy new Easter duds, they plop down right on the grass, cast their baskets aside, and proceed to eat or play with whatever came inside this first egg--and they do this while all the other kids are running around scooping up eggs with reckless abandon.  After approximately three minutes, all the other kids have overflowing baskets of eggs, while obsessors have only one.  They leave the hunt crying at the utter unfairness of it all. 
• Hogs are the other kids at the Easter egg hunt who are not obsessors.  Enough said.  My fervent hope is that, since a couple Easters ago, Sooby may have progressed from an obsessor to a hog.  It is what every googie wants for her grandchild, because hogs don't cry nearly as much.  For this reason, it is much more pleasant to ride home with a hog.
• Manipulators make up the creative category of egg hunters, desiring input into the appearance of their eggs.  Often, manipulators prefer hard-boiled eggs over the plastic ones, because of the hands-on opportunities to dye them and embellish them with crayon markings or stickers.  Blessed with a practical side, manipulators have been known to recognize and appreciate the benefits of egg salad sandwiches a day or two after Easter.  It is possible that this Easter Sooby may show some rudimentary characteristics of the manipulator.  I will watch intently for these.      

Whatever category your grandkids fall into, the coming Easter promises bountiful egg hunting opportunities for all.  Perhaps, like me, you will be blessed with a variety of types.  One thing is for certain: in a week, those three little kiddos will overrun my house and my heart, and there won't be a bad egg in the bunch.