At Least He Doesn't Sleep in A Bunny Suit...

Karenna is on the threshold of seeing through the whole Santa/Easter Bunny/Tooth Fairy/Lottery Fairy¹ charade.

Right before we got our Easter pictures taken she nearly broke my heart--or at least momentarily took my breath away--by telling me the Easter bunny was just a man in a suit.

"What do you mean?" I pretended to play dumb. I always knew the Easter Bunny was the weak link in the bunch.  A man in a red suit was believable, but the bunny suit does look kind of fake.

"It's a guy in a suit," she said.  "Bunnies aren't as tall as people."

I then explained the helper concept.  A man in a suit helps the Easter Bunny fill orders.  I also said the Easter Bunny is a large breed bunny, like there are large and small breed dogs.  She looked at me incredulously.  I tried to rattle off large rabbit movies as examples like Harvey and Donnie Darko, but the only one a kid would have seen is Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

When she and he brother got to the mall, they sat on the bunny's lap.  Jude loved the bunny.  He touched his glasses.  He pet the bunny and hugged him.  As we left, Karenna attempted to wink a very obvious wink at me and then whispered, "His glasses were very fake."

Fast-forward to tonight at bedtime: Karenna told me about this friend of hers who said the Easter bunny lives at his house. And another friend who has a kid in his class that said the Easter bunny wasn't real; it was the parents who get the toys and candy.

"Well that's silly," I said. I asked her when I would have had time to do all that shopping.  Then I continued, "Also, who would go hide the eggs in our yard in the dark?  Do you think Mommy would do that in the cold in her jammies?² I want to be in a warm bed asleep when the bunny comes."

Karenna agreed, "Yeah, and Daddy wouldn't be out there in in his underpants..."

1. What, your family doesn't have a Lottery Fairy? While my kindergartner might not believe in Santa, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy for much longer, members of the gambling contingent of my family (many years her senior) believe in a ficticious being they call the Lottery Fairy.  The Lottery Fairy does bestow occasional blessings upon the Massaros, but I'm not an expert on how much goes "under the pillow" so to speak to the Lottery Fairy until she pays out.
2. Yes, Mommy would. She has.  In the snow. I had pictures and a cold to prove it.