While helping the boys get dressed on Monday morning, I ended up crushing a bunch of plastic eggs. Now before you go thinking, Ugh how horrible, they’ve still got plastic eggs in their rooms two weeks after Easter, I feel I need to set the record straight. They’ve actually only been there for less then a day. You might then say to yourself That doesn’t make sense. You’re not wrong. Let me explain, and I’ll start with a confession.
I don’t always feel like a great dad.
I mean, I like to think I’m doing better than the average bear (If you happen to like Yogi Bear). I go to all the soccer games, cross country meets, and whatever sport is in season at the moment. I make homemade pizza on Friday nights, and at least once every two weeks we’ll eat dinner in front of the TV and watch the latest Mr. Beast video on Prime. (Honestly, doing that alone should qualify me for honorary Dad of the Year.)
But there are also moments where I drop the ball.. The kind that really sticks with you. You’re reminded of them later when it’s quiet and you feel like beating yourself up. I’m sure most parents know exactly what I mean.
For me, if I’m being honest, those moments usually have something to do with diabetes.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve been the Easter Egg hunt guy. Back in my prime, I even did hunts for the whole neighborhood. With tons, and tons, and tons of eggs. The numbers that would make a child scream with glee as if it were christmas. I even had a bunny outfit. Yes, a full bunny suit. No, there are no pictures… and if there are, I will deny their existence.
These days, the hunt is just for my kids, but that doesn’t mean I scale it back.
Oh no, not just a few neatly placed eggs around the yard. We go full throttle. Maybe not tons, and tons, and tons…probably just one ton. Yes, a full-scale operation. Even as the kids have gotten older, they still love it—and honestly, so do I.
Every Easter morning, I’d be up before sunrise, sneaking outside to scatter eggs like some kind of sleep-deprived holiday ninja.
And then this year happened.
The night before Easter, diabetes decided to play a game of chess with me, but decided that its rooks could move in any direction as many times as it wanted to, and somehow my pawns turned against me. (That’s a really long analogy for diabetes wasn’t playing by the rules) My blood sugars were in sky high territory all night. I ended up needing to use the bathroom at night (obviously) and laid in wondering if standing up was really worth the effort.
The alarm went off, and I could barely lift my hand to hit snooze. Six o’clock turned into seven, seven turned into eight. Each hour politely checking in, and me politely ignoring it.
I didn’t move.
Eventually, Owen came in and woke me up.
“Dad, it’s Easter.”
And just like that, my stomach dropped. Not from diabetes this time (although I still fell awful from that)just good old-fashioned guilt.
I had to tell him.
“Listen, bud… I know I usually hide eggs every Easter morning, but… we didn’t do it this year. I’m sorry.”
I felt awful. Like dad-failed-a-major-holiday awful. Because I did.
And Owen, being Owen, just looked at me and said,
“That’s okay, Dad. I know how it feels.”
Which, on the surface, is incredibly kind and empathetic.
But at that moment? With my blood sugar still high and my brain running its usual “you’re the worst” campaign? What I heard was:
“Yeah, Dad. I get it. You gave me diabetes. I live this every day.”
Now, to be clear, he did not say that. Not even close. That was 100% my brain being deprived of sugar. But diabetes has a funny way of turning the volume up on guilt and letting it narrate your life for a bit.
So yeah… that didn’t help.
I spent the rest of the day on the couch, curled up in the fetal position, while the kids went through the day as if were a normal Sunday. Not exactly winning any parenting awards here..
Yeah, it sucked. But you know what? Diabetes happens.
And then I had a thought—who says we can’t have a do-over?
Being a divorced family, we’ve had to move things around before. Birthdays don’t always land on the actual birthday. Sometimes you celebrate when everyone can be together. It still counts.
So… why not Easter?
Fast forward two weeks—today, actually.
I got up at 6:00 a.m. (redemption tour edition), went outside, and hid all the eggs. Full operation. No shortcuts. If we were doing this late, we were doing it right.
When the kids woke up, I told them the Easter Bunny had been… delayed. (Look, even magical creatures have scheduling issues.)
They didn’t question it for a second.
They ran outside, had an absolute blast, and for a while, everything felt exactly the way it was supposed to. We came back in, had breakfast, and just enjoyed the morning.
No one cared that it was two weeks late.
Diabetes can be a real drag sometimes. It gets in the way. It throws off plans. It makes simple things harder than they should be. And yeah—sometimes it wins a morning.
But here’s what I’m learning: being a good dad isn’t about getting everything right on time.
Sometimes it’s about getting it right eventually.
Sometimes the eggs show up late.
But they still show up.
And they will probably be in the boys’ room two weeks from now.