The Midget

Today is Easter Sunday and I always put together baskets for my overgrown adolescents, their husbands, boyfriend, girlfriend and now my mom, aka The Midget.

The Midget, as she has become affectionately penned by my daughter and known to my children's friends and college buddies all over the country, got her first singing bunny rabbit and a Pez dispenser today. We listened to the big pink bunny sing and flap its ears through most the afternoon.  
She sat in her recliner in the living room with the bunny on her lap, Smalls at her feet, all the while sporting her golf visor and dark sunglasses.  She reminded me of Hyman Roth, the mob boss in The Godfather as he sat with Michael Corleone on his terrace in Miami discussing the future of gaming in Vegas.  Michael had the nickname 'The Don' and Jeanne earned the nickname 'The Midget'.  Four-foot noting, but like Hyman, you don't screw around with her.  There is definitely something eerie watching her sit with her pink bunny, her Rottweiler and her Pez dispenser offering candy from her basket to each of her grandchildren as they came into the room.
At one point she called my son-in-law over and showed him a small yellow candy egg.  "Do you want this," she asked?  "No, thank you," he answered.  So, she put the egg in her mouth.  The look on her face should have prepared him for what happened next. Her lips curled down like you do when you are about to spit your food out and that's exactly what she did, directly into his hand.  What could he do?

I don't know why he is always the target of my mom's weirdest moments; perhaps it's because he is soft spoken and seems like a push over, an easy mark.  Nevertheless, he was left to discard the yellow candy egg The Midget didn't want!  After all who is going to argue with a 92 year-old wearing a golf visor and dark sunglasses in the middle of the living room with a pink bunny on her lap?
Besides the bunny, her next favorite easter toy was her Pez dispenser.  I gave her a yellow duck.  After a few tries she got the hang of it and began pushing on the back of the duck's neck so it would tip up and a candy would pop out.  As she tipped it up she whispered, "Quack, quack," and a miracle occurred, the candy popped out.  "Wow!  It talks back." Seriously, I can't make this stuff up.  It's too rich!  Jay Leno should come to my house.  The material around here never dries up.

As I have read and researched the various things that happen as you age the one thing that keeps coming back to mind is the old adage, 'life comes full circle', and my house is living proof.  I don't have to have easter egg hunts for my kids anymore, and in their baskets they prefer lotto cards to candy (except for Reeses), but because of The Midget the Easter Bunny still lives on at my house; she has brought the child out in all of us this year.