Yesterday I spent a couple of hours stuffing a hundred plastic eggs with treats for an egg hunt on Sunday, without much enthusiasm. I am reminded once again of one of my parenting rules that came along too late to be of any use to me: do not introduce any new traditions unless you are willing to commit to them for a lifetime.

When I was a girl, Easter was not a huge thing. We’d get a basket of treats and often a new outfit on Easter morning, and then go to church, dinner with our grandparents, that was it. But Pinterest and Blogging and Keeping Up With the Moms led me to think that, when my kids were toddlers, that an Easter egg hunt would be so fun! And we did it the first year, and it was pretty okay! And then the following year, I already had a hundred plastic eggs, so why not!

And now here we are 12 years later and I’m seeking little items to put in eggs for my sixteen-year-old who is learning to drive and who is growing a mustache, because TRADITION.

New moms: you have been warned.

I think I am especially cranky lately as my son and husband have been rewatching The West Wing. I picked up the first three seasons in a steal of a deal at a used book sale – $2 per season. I watched it the first time around so I haven’t been a devoted viewer this time around but the few scenes I have seen are really depressing. It’s because it’s a show about people trying to do good in this world, with basic kindness and humanity, and that seems so rare these days, especially in the world of politics.

And it’s almost comical, the things that pass for a “scandal” on that show – a major first season storyline is that Sam, who is the assistant communications director at the White House, is dating a woman who also happens to be a call girl, and that’s HUGE and TERRIBLE and must be stopped. Which compared to today – I mean, who even knows who the assistant communications director is, and what he’s doing, when we have so many worse things to worry about in the actual Oval Office?

Sigh.

Speaking of kindness and dedication, I was ranting to my youngest the other day about Unreliable People, as a few people had recently disappointed me with their failure to do things they said they would do. She was probably too young for such a talk, but I do find that as I age I am getting more and more jaded about people just showing the hell up when they say they are going to. I can count on one hand the people who I consider “my people” in that I know they will be there for me 100% of the time, no matter what, no questions asked. And I am related to most of them. What has happened to the days of It Takes A Village? Will we ever return to a time when streets and communities bonded together to care for one another?

I am probably just as bad. When I do it in reverse – people I’d be there for any time, any place – it’s probably also only a handful.

No wonder I’m such a curmudgeon. Hopefully a hundred pretty Easter eggs, lovingly posted in Instagram to convince other mothers that I’m as cool as they are, will fix me, for one day at least.