For Peep's Sake

Growing up as a kid, what I wanted more than anything was a fancy wrapped Easter basket from the store. They would be high up on shelves, these super tall baskets with their brightly colored saran wrap. They looked like the ultimate reward and, to my young eyes, the only true measure of my parents' love. But what did I actually get each year? A basket that was filled with double the candy, double the toys, and a real SOLID chocolate bunny that would last for days. But it never, ever contained any Peeps. As a practicing member of the Cult of Materialistic Commercialism, I looked past the value and thought put into my obscenely overfilled basket and could only appreciate that it was simply not the seemingly superior one from the store.  

This would be the begining of my childhood disappointments, continuing with doll sets from the Sears catalog (with 50 pieces!) to the strawberry shortcakes in those perfect little Twinkie-like forms, always with my mom declaring, "No. Those are crap." (My mom's only pseudoswear word is crap, so for her this was a very strong statement.)

Every year, I mourned the missing Peeps from my basket, always wondering why all of my friends got them but I didn't. Never mind that my basket was bigger, fuller, cooler than theirs. I couldn't see past those adorable little bunnies or chickies, bright yellow or pink (and eventually blue and purple), and they looked like they would be a sugar ecstacy that I would always be missing out on. I would secretly covet each and every one I saw, and with each year's passing and continued disappointment at my lack of Peeps, I grew more and more disillusioned with Easter and my mom's apparent lack of knowledge regarding the wonder that must be in a mouthful of Peeps.

When my own children were born, I had realized the worth and wisdom behind a homemade Easter basket (and strawberry shortcake) and continued the same tradition as my mom, scoffing at the store baskets (which I finally agreed were very cheap and not worth it), spending time and a LOT of money on creating a colorful, sugarful, magical basket for each one of my kids. I was now able to remember fondly the filled-to-the-brim baskets my mom created for me (and my sister, too, but I have no memory of her during my narcissistic childhood and this was long before my Ambien amnesia), and felt proud to pass those on to my own kids. The only change I felt I had to correct, NEEDED to correct, was the lack of Peeps. Though I loved my mom dearly, I felt still a twinge of resentment for those never-received Peeps and went on to made that most common mistake of every single new parent in the world - Deciding I wouldn't make that same mistake with my own kids.

To that point, I still had not had a Peep. Thought I would buy them yearly for my kids and even my husband (also a Peep addict), even as an adult and obviously capable of buying them for myself, it just never occurred to me. Finally, one year, after watching my kids in their sugar-crack frenzy, I felt it was high time I had one of those heavenly little colored marshmallow pillows. And you know what? My mom was right. They were crap. Like all the other things she had tried to protect me from, like Hostess Snowballs and store-bought strawberry shortcakes, they were things that had no place near my graduated tastebuds and acquired knowledge of things that taste good versus things that taste very, very bad. Cute as they may be, reminiscent of all things magical and amazing in my early childhood, the Peeps would finally take their rightful place in my mind as just one more of those times when mom knows best. Yes, I still buy them for my kids (who don't know any better yet and still think they're amazing), but I buy them not so much because my kids want them so bad, but more because of how it reminds me of my mom looking out for me, even if it was just shielding me from a nuclear-resistant Peep.