Three-year-old Ella Rupp reached out and stroked the fuzzy ears of a black-and-white rabbit named Oreo.
“What a soft bunny,” Rupp whispered Saturday morning before running to touch the next rabbit in the exhibit at the Children’s Museum of Denver.
Festive Easter bunnies weren’t the only animals at the museum’s annual Bunny Trail Egg Venture. For the 2,000 visitors who sought an alternative to an Easter-egg hunt, there were baby chicks, a lamb, an alpaca, and … rats.
Rupp’s mother, Janice Simon, said she was surprised her daughter warmed up to holding the long-tailed rodent.
“She held the rat and let it crawl all up and down her arms,” Simon said.
The rats were put away by 11 a.m., though, after a few parents complained they weren’t sanitary.
“Rats get a bad name,” said Michael Yankovich, the museum’s vice president of guest experience. “The point of the exhibit is to have empathy for nature, including the animals in your park or backyard.”
The museum’s Easter event, which targets 2- to 8-year-olds, was designed to ignite imaginations and foster a fun learning experience, said Nell Roberts, an events coordinator.
The kids visited “eggsploration stations,” from dying eggs to planting wild flowers, and received stamps in a scavenger-hunt passport.
Full passports were turned in for carrot-shaped goody bags.
Museum volunteers read the tale of Peter Rabbit, and a children’s dance team, dressed as angels, performed the song “Heaven Hop.”
The museum’s experience is different from traditional egg hunts because kids aren’t thrown into a competitive activity and parents can participate, Roberts said.
“It’s not nearly as chaotic,” Amy Doolittle, 31, said as she watched her kids perform a puppet show with their new creations. “There’s a lot of things to do here, like arts and crafts, where they can paint a picture or dye an egg.”
While kids dyed both Easter eggs and their fingers in bright rainbow colors, the Easter Bunny – decked out in a new suit – made special appearances around the museum.
“The kids hug my legs, one so hard he nearly toppled me over,” said the museum’s plush white bunny.
“A couple of them have even told me they loved me. It’s fun to be the Easter Bunny.”
Staff writer Julianne Bentley can be reached at jbentley@denverpost.com.
