Have I ever mentioned that I am unusually good at Wii Bowling?

I haven’t?

Well I really ought to have told you, you see, it’s very important as I regale you with this morning’s trip to the park. Let’s see, where shall I begin? Oh, yes, last night after the block party…if you followed me on Twitter you would already know so much about the party, specifically “Botox McImplants.” We came home a bit early, Sean had started feeling a bit green in the gills and before we knew it was running a temp of well over 100, 102 point something I think. Wanting to prevent getting the girls sick he opted for the downstairs couch to lay his sizzling head.

I took the girls up for a bath and stories. A full day of tromping up and down the street, swinging and going “back to the bush” on their scooters (yes, Avery can ride a scooter and much more with her broken leg) had left them refreshingly compliant in the march to sleep. After they were both drifting off I washed up and then retrieved Fin from her trusty swing. She kicked and gurgled beside me as I hungrily paged through a Koontz book, despite my head lolling back about every third paragraph, it felt like a huge treat. Once Fin fell asleep I checked on Sean and then went back upstairs to go to sleep.

Rather than bore you with the excruciating details (nightmares, startling sleep jerks, uncovered arms, dropped stuffed animals, wishy-washy feedings and more) I’ll just say that my sleep, if you can call it that, was interrupted approximately every 23 minutes, give or take a minute. This morning as Fin began a series of ,”I want you to offer me a breast, but I don’t want to nurse, I am too fussy to sleep but I don’t want to be awake,” shenanigans I closed my eyes with what I can only imagine was a seriously pained look and did some quick mama math. It was very clear that the only thing to do, despite every fiber of my being not wanting to do it, was to get up thus preempting the more painful manner of rising at the hands, feet and screams of toddlers. This decision was made ever so slightly easier as I recalled that, in a moment of uncharacteristic forethought, I had preset the coffee maker, meaning all I would have to do was press a button and be 8 minutes to heaven.

Fin and I crept down the stairs, being ready for and desiring the waking of little ones are two very different things. She generously sat somewhat quietly in her swing as I had a religious moment courtesy of Starbucks. Briar and Ave came down about 15 minutes later, what followed was an excerpt from the life of a short order cook and personal assistant. After 3 hours of that mama needed a break.

“But what about the bunny in the title?” you ask. I’m getting there, bear with me, it would appear the lack of sleep has adversely impacted my storytelling <---note the crafty avoidance of the effect vs affect dilemma? Hmm-mm, I use a similar tactic in verb conjugation when speaking in my now-rusty Spanish.

I strapped Finley to my chest and settled Briar and Avery in the wagon to head out for a walk. The streets were empty, even the city’s earliest risers seemed to be taking a break on this holiday weekend. We giggled at cats lounging in the street, bade hello to singing birds and lamented the trash littered about the streets, a leftover from the masses who parked along the streets for fireworks. Walking in silence, Fin gumming on my thumb, I felt pretty close to perfect, which, after my last post, is a spectacular revelation about the hope hiding around the darkest corners of parenting (Hear that Mrs. Chicken? Don’t read too much into the dark, it’s still amazing. You are going to love it and be incredible!).

“Mom, can we go to the pawk?” It was Briar who asked and Avery who clapped with glee.

“Sure, let’s go to the park.” And so we headed off, the girls chortling and chirping about which slides they’d go on and how high they’d swing. I pulled the wagon across uneven cement (yay bumps!) and up sandy hills (yay cardio!) and finally over a grassy bluff to the park. We had the place to ourselves and we played hard until my arms shook and my skin glistened with sweat.

“Ok, home!” There wasn’t even a peep of dissent, sweet, sweet sleepy acquiescence. We skirted the ponds and pointed at ducks as we made our way out of the park. Once we were on the street we fell silent, each of us (except a sleeping Fin) content to just watch the trees and feel the air, that is until we spied the bunny. Ok, who am I kidding?

I saw the bunny and I screeched with excitement. The girls searched the trees and bushes ahead of us, nit seeing the bunny, but delighted by my excitement. “Do you see it?” I asked breathlessly. They did the universal head-bob stall tactic, not wanting the moment to end, but having absolutely no idea where the thing that was making me act like a child was.

“It’s right there. Right there, do you see it under those branches?” I asked as I gesticulated wildly. Briar did, Avery did not.

“Ok. Ok, watch, mama will make it move.” Now, remember the Wii bowling thing? “Watch, mama will roll something over there to get it to run.” I searched the ground around me for something to roll. I picked up a couple of pine cones, but they were the dry, flaky light pine cones, not the gnarly heavy ones that would have worked so nicely. There were a few pebbles, but nothing that could travel the root-strewn path ahead. Finally, my eyes landed on a piece of crumbled pavement.

“Ok, watch,” I said, and by that time Avery had managed to spot the bunny. They watched, rapt, as I wound up and lobbed the stone forward. It sailed about four feet and then landed on the ground moving forward in an aggressive roll. The bunny sat beneath the limbs, paws and nose still working on leaves. The grey orb picked up speed as it rolled away from us. The girls leaned forward in the wagon.

Watching the chunk of concrete I began to feel ill, the bunny wasn’t moving and this thing was on track to not so much make the bunny run as it was to keep the bunny still. “There it goes mama, it’s going to the bunny,” Briar declared.

“Move bunny, move! I thought in a near panic. When it was about 6 inches away the bunny finally turned. I looked on in horror as the girls watched, it hit a root and hopped up, just as it did the bunny launched itself in the air, the little white puff of tail sailed up as the rock landed hard, like create a cloud of dirt dust hard, in the exact spot the bunny had been. I think I might have let loose a whimper as the girls turned to me and said, “You did it, you made him run, mama.”

I nodded and gave silent thanks that they didn’t have cause to say, “You got him, mama. You got him with the rock.”