Xavier First Bunny Release
Greetings to all.
Xavier got a new toy this morning, a water table. He played with it most of the afternoon, spending most of the day outside. Mom went about much yard work, while Xavier busied himself with the water table.
By the end of the afternoon, Xavier grew tired of the water table, Instead, he discovered a small rabbit (our yard is infested with these critters) and chased it up and down a fence line. While Xavier tormented a young bunny (definitely of mid May vintage), I pulled weeds from a flower bed along the house.
I looked down into the window well, and there were four small bunnies, all about four inches long; one easily fit into the palm of my hand. None had been out of the burrow very long. The window well proved too deep for these to escape on their own. How long they had been there is hard to guess, but likely a couple of days.
They were easy enough to collect. We put them into a small cardboard box, then packed up the family and drove down to the greenbelt area half a mile away.
This is one of those times I wish I had listened to myself and brought a camera. Neither Rebecca nor I even brought a cell phone along. Very disappointing not to have pictures, but still a great experience.
Xavier stayed close, curious about the box Dad carried. When we tilted the box up, the bunnies all scratched and pressed to stay inside the box. The scratching noises piqued Xavier's attention all the more.
And then, one bunny slid from the box into the grass. Xavier's eyes went wide and he "ooo'd". The bunny did not run off, but froze right where it slid into the grass. Xavier came around and squatted down next to it. He studied it, inching closer. Then, he reached down and gently petted it on its head with the tip of his finger. The bunny did not move. Xavier moved to stroking its head with his whole palm.
Eventually, the movement within the box by the remaining three refocused Xavier's attention to the box. Even more excited, now that he knew what the box held, he helped Dad set the rest of the baby rabbits free. Two ran, but the third hunkered down like the first, letting Xavier pet it too.
Now, when in the back yard, Xavier sees a rabbit, he tries to chase it down, hoping to pet it.
The Purple Charger
Greetings to everyone.
Rebecca was out of town this weekend, leaving Xavier and Dad to go bachelor. This morning, we decided to hit the grocery store and pick up some Father's Day cards, butter and a can of chocolate frosting (Dad wanted to bake some brownies).
With Xavier in the shopping cart guiding the way, we found the cards, then quickly identified where to get the butter. The frosting eluded us, and we had to backtrack twice.
As we swung through the toy section, we rounded a corner right into an end cap of Hot Wheels. Xavier, until this point, showed little interest in anything other than riding in the cart. He saw the display and squealed so loud with joy, I am quite certain they heard him on the other side of the store.
I told him he may chose one, then let the squirming boy down. He circled the display, pulling blister pack after blister pack and handed them to me. He did not pull them at random. No, there was definitely a pattern to his choosing.
He stopped filling my hands at six choices. I reiterated the rule: you get one. I flipped through them one by one. He examined it, and quickly made a decision about it, which ended being "put it back on the display."
He ended up choosing a purple, 1969 Dodge Charger 500. He hugged it all the way to the checkout and onto the car. I let him keep the blister pack containing the Charger as we drove home. He happily cooed over it, and made "vroom, vroom" sounds.
We got caught at a light. As we sat there waiting for it to turn green, across the street a purple car pulled up to wait at the same light. As I looked at it, thinking it's the same purple color as Xavier's new Hot Wheel, I noted another fact about it. It was a Dodge Charger. The only difference between the one across the street and the Hot Wheel, so far as I could tell, was the one waiting at the light had a heavy turbo installed on it.
Xavier's First Ladybug Release
Greetings to all.
Sunday, Rebecca bought Xavier a bag of 1500 Ladybugs. The weather all week has not made scheduling a release convenient. However, we had a break late yesterday morning. After the early ER trip, this was a nice treat.
A mesh bag served as the container for the Ladybugs. All week, they have been just hanging out in the bag, not too active. After all, the temperatures were cool.
That changed the moment I handed the bag over to Xavier to examine. The bugs seemed to know freedom was at hand! A Ladybug army 1500 strong raced to the top of the bag.
The sudden activity startled Xavier, who handed the bag back to Dad. We set the bag on top a small clump of I-dont-know-whats planted by the house's previous owner. This proved a solution Xavier found acceptable. He could observe safely from afar.
The release excited Xavier. He watched intently as the Ladybugs marched out of the bag and onto the plants. He took it all in from several different angles, getting closer to the bag with every re-positioning.
Eventually, curiosity took over; he just had to touch one of those little red crawly things. That led to needing to handle the bag.
Peering down through the top of the bag as more and more Ladybugs marched did not produce the results Xavier had imagined. The beetles crawled over his hands and onto his shirt, something Xavier did not like at all!
He tried shaking out the bag, then he dropped it and ran for cover between Dad's legs. When he looked down at the sidewalk and saw two beetles walking toward him, he felt the need to distance himself further. I've never seen Xavier get so flustered by anything.
Still fascinated, Xavier did creep closer to the plant we replaced the bag upon. With some moral support from Mom, he found the courage to almost touch one of the Ladybugs again.
All in all, a fun thirty minutes. And, it turned out to be a shared family moment; even Lena got involved.
I know that over the next few hours, I pulled up one pant leg or the other to discover a Ladybug crawling there. Apparently, Dad was not as careful as Xavier to keep the bugs at bay.