Callie and the Rabbit

Callie is now 2 years old and has developed some pretty good hunting skills.  She has been known to catch birds, mice, and voles, but her preferred animal this spring has been baby rabbits.  Prior to this week, I was the only one aware of her taste for bunnies as she would leave them near the compost bin for me to find.  Everyone else in the family was oblivious.

So a couple of days ago,  I sent the two older boys out to the bus stop to catch the bus to school and before they can even get to the street, Callie runs through the yard with something in her mouth and drops it in the driveway right in front of them.  Brady starts jumping up and down and yelling “Go Callie, go!” because he thinks she’s caught a squirrel while Luke immediately realizes she has a bunny.  (Brady’s response after realizing it’s a bunny, “Oh, nevermind”  Why he was excited about the possibility of her catching a squirrel, but completely ambivalent either way about about a bunny is something I haven't been able to figure out even after talking to him about it, but I digress.) 

I go out to meet everyone in the driveway to get them sent on their way and Callie decides to pick up the bunny and take off with it.  At this point the bunny, which had previously remained silent and I thought was probably in bad shape, starts squealing.  Nope, the bunny is still very much alive.  I look over at Luke who is about to cry and who says to me with tears in his eyes, “I feel really bad for that bunny.”  I attempt to tell Luke that’s life sometimes and explain to him the laws of nature in 5 seconds while ushering him across the street to the bus stop (How lucky are we that the bus stop is literally the curb across the street from our driveway?  Very.  One of the perks of living at a t-shaped intersection I suppose.)  Now that the boys are across the street at the bus stop, Callie proceeds to repeatedly pick the bunny up, carry it a little, and set it down again, each time causing the bunny to squeal over and over while Luke watches intently.  I realize at this point, I have two choices:

1.  I can send a very upset kindergartner to school who has a field trip that day that he's already a little anxious about and this may just be the thing that pushes him over the edge. 

2.  I can attempt to rescue the bunny in the approximately 30 seconds before the bus arrives.  

I choose the second option, which has me chasing Callie with the squealing bunny around the yard in my work clothes but bare feet.  The grass was pretty cold that morning, by the way.  I succeed in getting Callie away from the bunny and placing a bucket that happened to be laying next to the house over the bunny as the bus is coming down the hill.  Smiles appear all around from the boys and on to the bus they go.  As soon as the bus pulled away and rounded the corner, I let the bunny out, told it it was on it’s own, and wished it good luck as it hopped off.  As soon as the incident was over, I realized this was yet another time when I have a two year old running amok in the house while I attempt to wrangle wildlife in the yard.  (See the bat story here.)  Then I turned around to find that Caleb had been watching the entire incident while standing in the window of the storm door.  I can only imagine what he was thinking.