A childhood belief about easter bunny

When I was little, I used to believe in the Easter bunny. I'm now 12 and I'm far from believing in him anymore. There were actually a few different times when I was younger that I almost stopped believing. Then there were a few times I was given clues as to if he was real or just myth.

For one time, when it was Easter morning, I was about 6 years old. I had always anticipated getting up early in the morning looking for the Easter basket that the "Easter bunny" had hidden the night before, so I got up at 6:00 and began the search. Searching for what seemed to me to be endless minutes, I finally found the Easter basket that I had anticipated so much, hung on a fan in the dining room. At six years old, it just doesn't really occur to you that often that if you want to look for your Easter basket, you have to look "up" sometimes. Then after stuffing myself with candy and Marshmallow Peeps, I went over to the small plate on the coffee table, carrots and lettuce stacked high on the dish. I thought to myself. "Why in the world didn't he eat the food I put out for him?
There's another clue there.

Another time I was going outside to look for my basket at the age of 7. Little did I know that there, on the ground out in front of me, was the most important clue of my inquiry as to whether the bunny was real or not. Fluffy, white cotton balls scattered around. "Is he shedding this time of the year?"

Yet another time, at the age of 10, the belief in the Easter bunny had met its end and started to fade away, to be long remembered in my mind. I stopped believing that year because I had not gotten all I wanted in my basket. But still, to this day, I enjoy painting Easter eggs with bright colors, and hosting Easter egg hunts for the younger kids, and let's just say that I made an agreement with my mom that the "Easter bunny" will still continue to visit our house and bring back the memories with those endless searches for the baskets, the long nights sleeping on Easter Eve, and the joy of discovering your Easter basket on early Easter morn.