Walking bunnies

Hannah is very happy, because the bunnies are almost completely litter box trained.  They don’t make it there for all of their poop, but that comes out in dry pellets that are easy to take care of.  In her opinion, the pee is the thing that needs to be contained.  I can’t say I blame her, and the bunnies have discovered how much happier they are when they use the litter box.

So we’re moving on to bigger challenges.  Hannah would like to walk the bunnies.  Apparently it’s possible.  She’s read it in her book on rabbits.  (Incidentally, Hannah reads all the books on rabbits, including the ones that address parents with things like, “Make sure your children understand that you have to be quiet around the rabbits.”  It cracks me up.)  So we got some extra-small adjustable dog harnesses and are starting this process.

Naomi was all for popping them in the harnesses, snapping on the leash, and taking off.  Hannah – having read about it in the books – patiently explained that they have to get used to the harness first, then the leash.  She also explained about how you have to keep the leash short and how AT ALL COSTS you must avoid getting the leash tangled in anything, because the bunnies will panic if they feel like they’re caught.

I am not so enthusiastic about neighborhood rambles with prey animals in an area with lots of dog owners, but I’m keeping that to myself at present.

The important thing right now is that the bunnies get used to the harnesses. 

Since I was skeptical about the whole idea of litter training rabbits and it has worked out quite well, I’m going to reserve judgment on this one.  Who knows?  Maybe soon I’ll be posting pictures of us on hikes with the bunnies on leashes. 

Tell me how you really feel

My parents are in town, so we’ve been seeing a lot of our in town relatives, as well as my parents.  When I broke the sad news today to Naomi that we wouldn’t be seeing the in town cousins, her response was, “I’m miserable.”

Botany

On our walk to the library today, Sim pointed out (several times), “IVY!”  He also identified phlox (also several times) and lavender.  He asks me about others, so I’m sure he’ll be pointing those out soon, too.  He’s pretty much all about clear identification of what’s at eye level, though.  Trees are pretty much, “Big tree.” 

2!

Wow.  Time flies. 

Happy 2nd Birthday to Simeon!

Sim’s haircut

I regret this haircut.  Not because it’s not totally cute, because I think it is.  I regret it because people keep telling me what a big boy Sim looks like now that his hair is cut.  See for yourselves.

Before:

Sim found Michael’s wallet.

He went for the cash.  (And, yes, his hair was REALLY long.)

Who taught him that?

Despite the somewhat bizarre look on his face, Sim was SO PROUD of holding the rabbit himself.  In fact, so proud that he demanded I take my hand away. 

After:

It turns out that this is what Simeon has started doing when a camera is pointed at him.

I had to work to get him to smile.

Which sometimes worked…

…and sometimes didn’t.

He’s pretty cute, though.

His haircut isn’t totally clean and accurate, because I’m the one who did it.  I also had a moving target.

It looks a lot neater, but don’t let appearances fool you.  Just because he has a big boy haircut, speaks in full sentences, clears his own plate from the table, and insists on doing everything himself, doesn’t mean that he’s not a tiny baby. 

Beets

Last week, I took the kids to a u-pick farm about 45 minutes from the house.  The idea with u-pick is…that you pick your own food.  Then you end up paying less for it, since you went out there and picked it.  One of the things I really like about u-pick is that the kids know where their food came from and what it looked like before it shows up on their plates.  Another is that they really like eating food that they picked themselves, even if it’s something they might not normally eat. 

We’ve done this with lots of berries, but this was the first time we’d done veggies.  The kids were definitely excited, and the experience lived up to their expectations. 

Simeon wasn’t quite as into the picking, because they had wagons there to take to the fields and bring back your produce.  He LOVED the wagons, and spent most of his time either trying to pull one or sitting in one.  For him, this could have been a u-pull-and-ride outing and he would have had just as much fun.

Hannah wandered in and out of the fields, loving life.  The farming nun thing (did I mention that Hannah is fully convinced that she’s called to be a farming nun?) might be a really good fit for her.  :)  She spent a bunch of time in one of the greenhouses, hunting out tomatoes. 

Naomi quickly got the hang of things, too, although she doesn’t like tomatoes, so she wasted not a moment on them.  Carrots, though.  And beets. 

Once the girls discovered picking beets, they couldn’t get enough.  At one point, Naomi called out, “Look, Mama!”  Turning to look, I saw her holding up an enormous beet – probably about the size of her head!  I imagine it weighed about a pound and a half. 

Now that we’re home again, we’ve been eating lots of beets.  Roasted, soup, in salads, etc.  Luckily, we all like beets.  Michael and I have also been eating lots of beet greens.  In the soup, sauteed, made into a salad, etc. 

We probably still have enough beets to eat them each night this week.  Like I said, it’s a good thing we all like beets.

Perplexors

Hannah and I have been doing logic puzzles from the book Perplexors.  She loves them, and is getting really good at them.  Yesterday, though, one was more perplexing than usual.  As she was reading the story, she read out, “…and they sold raffle tickets for charity.”  She stopped abruptly, looking at me in confusion.

“Why would anyone sell raffle tickets for charity?  Nobody wants charity!”

Snippets

Sim:  [to one of our dinner guests, who was at the table, having just finished her meal]  Read me a book.

Me:  Sim, how do we speak politely?

Sim:  [indicating the direction of the living room]  Let’s go.

*****

Naomi:  Mama, I love the bunnies more than I love you.

*****

Hannah:  [making gagging noises and nasty faces as she takes the bunny laundry down to the washer]  Mama, the books all say that bunnies poop.  None of them said that bunnies pee.  I wish they didn’t.

Guess what?

After over a year of research on Hannah’s part, she got a new bunny yesterday.  And Michael got one, too.  Because bunnies do better when they have another bunny to play with.  They’re two girls.  Heh heh.  We’d like to stick to having ONLY two bunnies for a while.  Theyr’e about 8 weeks old.  They’re really cute. 

Before they arrived, we (and I use the term we somewhat loosely here) built them a cage.  Michael pretty much built the cage.  Hannah and Naomi assisted.  I come into the picture as the one who did the research and found that you can use wire shelving cubes and zip ties to make rabbit cages. 

Really, though, it’s important to try out the cage first.

Preferably with a WHOLE BUNCH of people.  Just to be sure. 

 

It was deemed worthy of its soon-to-be inhabitants.

Here’s Naomi, helping Michael in his efforts to secure the support bars for the shelves in the cage.  She’s in charge of holding the screws and passing them to him when he needs them.  If you look closer…

You can see where she decided to hold them.  Ingenious!

Why, yes, the bunnies are in the cage.  How could you tell?

Here’s a view of the cage in its almost-finished state.

Since they’re pretty young, they’re not yet really jumping too high.  Or maybe that’s because they’re still getting used to their enclosure.  In any case, the higher shelves will be covered (eventually) with something absorbent and soft.  Bunnies pee, you know.

This is Hannah, holding Gypsy, her very own bunny.  Gypsy is a Dominican bunny.  Well, her breed is Dutch, but she’s sporting the black and white of the Dominicans.

Here’s Mimi, holding Hildegard von Bunny, Michael’s bunny, which he obligingly shares with everyone.  He chose the name.  We call this bunny Hildy, for short. 

Naomi likes to kiss the bunnies.

Gypsy.  This is while we were cleaning the cage this morning.

They spent some time slipping on the floor.  Turns out that newly-refinished floors + fur-covered feet = slipping. 

Hildy is adventurous.  She’s trying to check out whether she can get into the guest room.  

Ah!  A towel!  Respite from the slipping!

Gypsy decides that the corner looks like a likely spot for a rest.

Hannah and Naomi really like the new bunnies.  Hannah has already been hard at work, cleaning out the cage.  Bunnies poop, you know.  And pee. 

But they’re darn cute, so that makes up for all the hard work.  Right, Hannah?

Hannah agrees. 

I mean, really, who can resist?  Oh, yep, that’s poop in picture, too.  Hannah and Naomi cleaned it up later. 

We’re pleased with the new bunnies.  In fact, excitement is running very high.  In fact, so high that it’s difficult to be calm enough to actually interact with the bunnies without freaking them out.  But the rewards of getting to hold and pet them (they’re really, really soft) seem to be a good incentive to calming down.

School’s back!

We started second grade, pre-K, and preschool today.  Naomi began demanding to LEARN! at the breakfast table.  When I mentioned something about what we might do after quiet time, Naomi said we were going to LEARN LEARN LEARN all day.  This was somewhat daunting, since I certainly didn’t have that much material ready for them.  Naomi ended up being content with what I did have planned. 

Latin was one of the subjects that we started today.  Originally it was only scheduled for Hannah, but Naomi wanted in on the Latin, too.  So they’re running about saying things like, “Hit the via!” and, “The luna will be coming up once it gets dark.” 

Simeon was not as impressed with school, mainly because he wanted his sisters to do things that involved him far more often than they were available.  He’ll probably like the songs that we’ll start doing more often. 

I had gotten some books from the library for Hannah’s school.  One, called The Way We Work (about the human body), I had planned on using for science, having Hannah read a chapter at a time.  She got her mitts on it last week, though, and has read all but the last two chapters, the last one being on reproduction, which we’re not going to cover in that kind of depth at this point.  This means that we have only one chapter left of the book…so I’ll have to revise my science plans for the next week or two.  Not a bad problem to have, I suppose!

Fire. Ugh.

I know you’re all dying to hear more about camping.  So I’ll start at our second campsite.  Here it is:

I’ll post photos of moving the tent later.  It was amusing.

 

There were two stumps at the next (empty) campsite, which led to one of the favorite games of camping.

Get up on the stump…

 

…and jump off!

Then do it again.

And again!

 

We were at the home of friends the other day, a very lovely home that was welcoming and had very nice decor.

 

They also had a fireplace.

Simeon pointed at it and said,

 

“Fire. Ugh.”   Brought to you by Fr. Jerome.

 

Simeon was not impressed that we thwarted his efforts to put (6-inch) sticks in the fire, when Hannah and Naomi got to put sticks in the fire.

Of course, they were several feet long and had marshmallows on them, besides being operated by someone older than 1 year.

 

Fr. Jerome also got in on the marshmallow-roasting.

S’mores.  Mmm.