They're Real to Them

Earlier today my daughter said to me, "I want to say hi to the rabbit."   I had no idea what she was talking about.  I thought perhaps there was some rabbit on the show that was playing on television.  I  wasn't paying attention because I was cleaning crumbs off the floor.   (My dog is our crumb cleaner but she's away is visiting Nana.)  I asked my daughter about the rabbit and then I realized what she meant...

My father gave us a hand puppet that's a white rabbit coming out of a top hat for Christmas.   We played around with it a bit on Christmas day and then stuck it on the end table in the living room.    My daughter was wanting the rabbit to come alive again.   I picked up the rabbit, put my hand inside and had him slowly appear out of the hat.   My daughter grinned and laughed.   Then in a high, squeaky rabbity voice I said hello and waved the little rabbit paws.   My daughter said hello back and then did more giggling.   I asked her for a hug and then a kiss but my daughter had gotten shy.

She was shy, but not scared.   She got her scooter and asked the rabbit if he could catch her.   After several rounds around the house she told the rabbit to follow her, she wanted to show him something. We went to the counter where the gingerbread houses my children made were sitting and she showed him her house and her brother's house.   She wanted to give him some candy and he happily "ate" a yellow M&M.

I had work to get done so I told her the rabbit had to go back and rest some for now.    Then, a few hours later, my daughter wanted to see the rabbit again.  My son was around this time and he was just as eager and just as excited to talk to the rabbit and show it things.   They were vying for the rabbit's attention as they did jumps and hops across the couch and ottoman.  They never looked at me, even when I talked for the rabbit—and they never stopped grinning.

I had watched the documentary about Kevin Clash, the creator of the character Elmo.  He has been a life-long puppeteer, fascinated with puppets since he was a small child.   He had said children saw him, knew he was there, but it didn't matter because all they did was look at the puppet.

I saw that in action today.   To my children, the rabbit was real.

The Big Boy Update:  My son believes he and his sister sleep in "bump beads."  I suggested he could call them, "bunk beads" but he was having none of it.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  I said out loud to my husband, "I can't connect to The Moon.   Something must be wrong."   The Moon is our file server, so named because it is very large in storage capacity.   My daughter heard our conversation, got up out of her chair, went over to the window to look up (in the middle of the afternoon) for the moon and said, "something's wrong with the moon.  Maybe there's a space ship?"

Fitness Update:  Three-and-a-half miles mid-morning.   We worked on speed but we were interrupted by friendly neighbors so it's questionable we improved on anything.  We were hoping for a longer run but my friend got stuck at the hospital working for longer than she anticipated and my husband had a tight window he had to go to work in, so we ran for as long as we could wedge in.