Easter Egg Smackdown 2022

We didn't get around to dying eggs until bedtime last night. And that's just the regular ol' drop-them-in-a-pot-of-dye method. We're still working on our pysanky.

We weren't busy with anything in particular. The day was filled with Easter baskets and chores in the morning, and napping and playing and building a shelf for Zoë's bed in the afternoon. I'm really not sure how the day got away from us, but it did. And we didn't start dying eggs until around 8:00!

It was kind of a magical year for dying eggs. All the kids old enough to participate are responsible enough that I wasn't stressed out over the entire process for the first time in years. No eggs were dropped. No dye was spilled. No tears were shed. 

I'd feel relieved but...I know that I have another little chaos agent in the making (it's Phoebe; she was simply too little this year to participate). I was quite surprised with how delicately Alexander handled his eggs.

Benjamin was most excited for an egg he dyed half blue, half yellow, which he named Ukraine's Revenge. He'd wanted to also make an egg to look like the Russian flag, but that was easier said than done...with the blue stripe in the middle of the egg (France, on the other hand would be quite doable). You can see his design plans on the whiteboard behind Rachel.

Here's Miriam experimenting with tape to see if that will help keep the dye at bay. Turns out...it would not. I suppose we could have broken out our wax and kistkas, but...I didn't feel like dealing with all that.

We finished dying eggs, put the kids to bed, woke up, went to church (in person or via Zoom, depending on vaccination status) and then convened for our annual Easter Egg Smackdown!

The first step is to name all the contenders. Alexander named this little bluebird egg "Bloob" after blueberries, which he calls "bloobs," because that makes sense. He also has a little utensil that he loves, which has a spoon side and a fork side, but one of the fork tines is actually a little serrated knife blade (sounds dangerous, but it's really not). He calls this his "snork" (spoon+knife+fork). He has a lot of words that he confidently uses as words, which people outside of our household might not understand.

I think his little bluebird egg turned out so sweet. He dipped it all by himself!

Here's Miriam with "Fire and Ice":

Here's Rachel's "Eggs-olotl," a little play on the word axolotl, with "Bathing in the Blood of my Enemies'" (to the left) and "Powerhouse" (to the right). 

"Powerhouse" is an illustration of the mitochondria...the powerhouse of the cell (homeschooling is working).

Andrew didn't feel like he had a ton of time to get creative with his eggs (since he and I were trading off Phoebe, etc.), so he went for a straightforward 1, 2, 3, 4, and finished!

Here's my egg "The Word" (because, haven't you heard? I'm pretty sure everybody's heard):

And here's Bruce, named after my dad, I suppose...but also Bruce from Finding Nemo:

"Name's Bruce!"

Here's Benjamin with his Zelda egg:

And here's Zoë with one of her unicorn-themed eggs:

I'm not sure which one this is. Pastel Fury? Sparkles? Believe? They all looked more or less the same. She tried to use the unicorn stickers that came with the pack, but they wouldn't stick to the egg, so that was a little disappointing (but then I suggested she just use the unicorn stickers to make a picture and that made her happy).

Here's Phoebe looking gross:

I swear I don't know how she got to be so chubby. This is how she looks 90% of the time. She is constantly spitting up. Just all the time! But there's nothing really to be done since she's happy and gaining weight. We'll just assume she has esophageal issues like so many of my other kids. I mean, I know babies are born with underdeveloped esophagi and that's pretty normal...but my kids tend to have enthusiastic reflux. Some have spontaneously vomited clear until middle school (*cough*Rachel*cough*) and others developed laryngomalacia (*cough*Alexander*cough*) and others had trouble gaining weight and the acid reflux would make their heart stop (*cough*Benjamin*cough*). But, they all got through it. So Phoebe will, too. 

Until then, we will simply all have to endure daily milk baths.

Here's Benjamin ready for the first round:

And thus began the smackdown competition. Here's Andrew and Benjamin competing:

Here's Miriam preparing to play:

Here's Phoebe enjoying the excitement from the sidelines:

Here I am taking a turn:

Andrew:

Andrew getting really into it:

He decimated Miriam's egg:

This particular egg was named "Hulk's Butt" because Miriam had been trying to make a Hulk egg but did it upside down, so...she named it "Hulk's Butt."

When Andrew examined the carnage he said, "I guess this is now Hulk's Butt...crack." And the kids thought that was hilarious. Even more funny was that the egg Andrew had played with was his "#2" egg.

Here's Zoë getting ready to send her egg flying:

She must have won this round because she's still smiling:

Okay, you know what? This was the round where the eggs actually failed to collide with each other, so Andrew's egg went sailing directly into Zoë's knees. It smashed to smithereens. So she did win that round and she was happy about that, even if her knee was a little sore.

Here's Benjamin gearing up to play against Alexander:

It was not difficult to win against Alexander because he often sent his eggs off with a little...toss:

That said, he did make it into the final round, so he must have been doing something right:

He played with a lot of intensity, that's for sure:

This little egg was another one that Rachel made; she called it "Climate Pain" and thought it was rather fitting that it got smashed right in the face:

Here's Rachel with her "Eggs-olotl" before it got smashed to bits:

She was squaring off against the fierce and ferocious Miriam:

Rachel demolished Miriam's egg:

Here I am saying, "Oh, man!" after my egg lost a round.

Here's "Fire and Ice" about to square off with "Bath in the Blood of My Enemies":

Miriam won, and a good thing, too, because I don't think Rachel really would have wanted to write down the full name of her egg each time it progressed through a round.

I think that by this point all of Zoë's eggs had been eliminated (or very nearly) and she was upset, though we managed to prevent tears by distracting her with some baby-holding time:

In fact, no one cried this year! This very well may have been the very first tearless smackdown in the history of Easter Egg Smackdowns.

Here's Rachel staring aghast at the wreckage of her egg after a round against Andrew:

Poor little Eggs-olotl's face was blown to bits:

The other contender in this match was her own egg—Powerhouse—which Andrew played. It wasn't in very good condition, either (it was impaled by bits of Eggs-olotl!), but after much deliberation it was determined that Powerhouse would limp its way to the next round (where it was easily defeated).

Our final match was between Alexander's "Firesphere," so named because he'd dyed it bright red and wanted to call it "Fireball," but I believe one of Miriam's (?) eggs was already named "Fireball," so Alexander quickly said, "Firesphere, then!"

(Another bit of evidence that homeschooling is working, right? Sometimes I have to reassure myself that my children are, in fact, learning). 

He's getting to have quite a quick wit. We were talking about dying eggs the other day and he piped up, "And how are we going to do that. Will we have to murder someone?"

"Excuse me?" I asked. 

"It's a pun!" he cackled. "Dye! Die! Get it!?"

I did get it. But it was still shocking to hear him say such a thing (even in jest). 

When Rachel announced that, according to the bracket she'd drafted, Alexander and I were due to compete against each other, he sweetly turned to me and said, "Mom, are you prepared to meet your doom?" before skipping off to Smackdown Alley (a.k.a. the hallway). His cheerful tone did not match his menacing sentiments at all. But that was about how cheerfully he asked whether we'd have to murder someone to dye the eggs. Goofy kid.

Anyway, here are the boys at the final match, with "Firesphere" facing off against "Ukraine's Revenge":

And this year's winner was...

...not this kid! 

This is the happy face of this year's runner-up. 

Alexander lost to...

Benjamin, who is hoping his victory signals the same for Ukraine. He was very excited because it's his first time ever winning (and he's been competing for so many years).

Here's the mess of eggs we turned into deviled eggs and egg salad sandwiches for lunch:

And here's this year's bracket:

It's such a silly Easter tradition, but we love it. And even though the kids have cried about it in years past they always look forward to doing it again the following year. It's not everyday your parents encourage you to throw eggs around the house!

Here's our running list of Smackdown champions:

2022: Benjamin

2021: Rachel

2020: Alexander
2019: Aunt Katharine
2018: Rachel
2017: Miriam
2016: Miriam
2015: Me
2014: Me
2013: Miriam
2012: Andrew
2011: Rachel
2010: Me
2009: Patrick Q. Mason
2008: Me