By Hannah Mayer 

When I was a kid it was my family’s annual tradition to drive to my Grandparents’  house the night before Easter so that we could wake up bright and early the next morning to hunt eggs.  While we practiced this tradition for several years, there is one particular year when I was four that continues to live on in my mind as a festive little holiday memory. 

After a fun-filled day of dyeing eggs and eating Peeps, one by one everyone slowly turned in for the night and fell into a peaceful Easter slumber.  Everyone except me, that is.  I laid there wide-eyed well into the wee hours of the morning, shivering in a pool of my own sweat, the blanket pulled so tightly around my face that I could barely inhale. 

I was terrified IT was going to find me.

IT being the 6-foot pink mongloid rabbit freak my Mom had offered me up to like a sacrificial lamb the week before. 

My Mom and I had stood in line forever – I knew it was a bunny we were waiting for and I imagined that it was going to look exactly like the cute little cotton tailed critters playfully bounding around our back yard. 

Oooh – I hope it’s a white one with pink eyes!  Maybe I will even get to pet it!    

My first indication that this might be an inaccurate assumption was the blood curdling screams of those who had gone before me that continued to grow louder as we slowly inched forward. 

After what seemed like an eternity, we finally reached the front of the crowd and I was able to get my first full on view of the hideous creature sitting before me. 

That thing ain’t right. 

I frantically tried to reason out why she would betray me as she stood there smiling and snapping photos while it inched closer and closer to my terrified face, staring deep into my soul with those dead, black eyes. 

What the HELL, woman?  STOP TAKING PICTURES AND KILL IT!  OH THOSE HORRIBLE TEETH!  HOLY JESUS IT’S GOING TO EAT ME! KILL IT AND KILL IT FAST!   

I couldn’t believe it – the one person I had trusted for the last four years had just abandoned me at the gates of hell.   

Then afterward in the car ride home she told me the unthinkable – IT was coming to my Grandparents’  house next week. 

In the night. While I slept.   

She might as well have told me that a demonic woodland troll that fancies little girl flesh would be permanently taking up residence behind the furnace in our basement. 

Despite the fact that my own Toddler Torture scars have barely finished healing, I’m the first to raise my hand now as a guilty parent participant. 

We took Ellie to watch the fireworks last week and about a mili-second after the first bang she tried to claw her way back into my womb through my mouth, looking at us with confused, crazy terrified eyes that wondered why we were just sitting there while the sky exploded. 

Toddler Torture comes in all shapes and sizes and is in no way limited to the holiday season.  Just ask the 3-month-old baby blistering next to you at the Cardinals game decked out from head to toe in his My ‘Lil Molina uniform, his eyes begging you to please tell his Dad that he doesn’t give a sh*t. 

Why do we do these things to our children?  Is it for our own sick enjoyment?  Some sort of passive aggressive retaliation for all the 3 a.m. feedings, or having a neck to knee blowout the ONE TIME you forgot to bring a change of clothes so you were forced to be THAT woman walking around the Schafly beer fest with a baby in nothing but a diaper?

While I personally find nothing wrong with subconsciously punishing a child with the idea of a 6-foot pink rabbit sneaking into their room at night and saddling them with a lifetime of nightmares and possible therapy, I suspect it’s something more.

Like many women who (despite taking numerous drastic and, in many states illegal, measures) wait until their 30s to get married, the idea of “family life” was so built up that by the time the baby finally came I was bursting at the seams with excitement to introduce her to everything I used to love, whether she  liked it or not.  

But to whose benefit really is dressing a baby in a monkey costume and parading her around the neighborhood? 

Actually the answer to that one is mine but for different reasons than making fond family memories.  It’s called whoring your daughter out for chocolate, people, and don’t sit there for one second and pretend like I’m introducing a totally foreign concept.  I’ve seen it a million times.  

It’s almost like a right of passage, like losing your first tooth or shooting your first squirrel (well, if you’re from where I’m from).  We went through it and so will they.  And, who knows?  It might even keep them safer in the long run.  Always keep a bat within arm’s reach, sweetie, because you never know who might be shimmying his way down your chimney.    

Hannah Mayer is a 12-year St. Louis resident and Mom to 13-month-old Ellie.  She’s new to the Full-Time Mom; retiring from her 10-year career at an advertising agency in January. Her personal blog can be found at www.sKIDmarking.com. Follow her on Twitter @ The_sKIDmark.

Image found at SFGate.com.   

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