Ava has a lovey that follows her wherever she goes. Her lovey's name is simple, exactly what it is. She calls her lovey Bunny and a perfect name it is.
Bunny was a gift I received at my baby shower from my mother and one whose existence was thought of from the moment she knew she was going to be a Grandmother. Every child needs a lovey, a toy to bring to life, to confide in and to become one of their favorite friends. I had a bunny blanket as a child, it was blue with satin edging and was given to me from my Nanny, my grandmother. It went everywhere I went, it was my very first friend.
Ava first "met" her bunny when she made the transition to her crib around six months. It was at the same time the she was successfully removed from her heart monitor, the dreaded Smart Monitor II. Prior to that she slept few nights in her cradle beside my bed and mostly curled up with me in my bed. When she stopped breathing she was close enough for me to quickly stimulate her enough to take a breath that would make the piercing alarm stop and allow me to half go back to sleep, relieved when the sound stopped. When she left my side I felt she needed something to take my place, to snuggle with. So I tucked her in with Bunny.
Back then Bunny was a gorgeous shade of baby pink trimmed with the softest pink satin. Two black stitched eyes above a tiny pink nose. Bunny's perfect little head was flanked with two floppy soft velour ears with pink satin lining. And when you shook him just right, a little rattling sound came from his head.
It was a slow adjustment at first and ironically I slept less without her next to me. But I made sure that every day we went to bed bunny was right by Ava's side. And every morning I scooped her from her crib, Bunny was scooped up as well. A few months later, they were inseparable.
Bunny had it rough that first year. He was spit up on, fed mashed peas, was pushed too high on the swings for his own belly's comfort and spit up on some more. But he was given so much love that his vibrant pink color began to fade. Every time he got a little too dirty he was given a bath in the washing machine. I always snuck him in when Ava was distracted with another toy so she wouldn't notice that he was missing.
But one day, she became upset over a broken toy and wanted Bunny to soothe her. She wanted to run the palm of her hand along his satin trimming and caress her cheek with satin lining of his floppy little ear. She looked everywhere for him. She checked under her chair. She peeked in her crib. She emptied the toy box all the while calling, "Bunny... Bunnnny....?"
Then she heard Bunny's distinct rattle. Bunny was spinning in the dryer, on low heat of course. If I tried to give him back to her wet she would get mad at her bunny for being wet and yell, "OOOOhhhgh! My Bunny's all wet!" in complete frustration. So in the dryer he goes after his bath.
So I carried Ava to the dryer and her eyes lit up when she heard that familiar rattle. "It's Bunny!" she exclaimed. "That silly Bunny, he's in the dryer!"
So we slowly opened it up and she peered inside. I swiped the bunny from the depths of the dryer and just our luck, he was dry and ready for some big love. Ava quickly grabbed him and embraced Bunny in a tight hug, so tight that if he had lungs, they would feel slightly squished.
Soon after Ava's second birthday Bunny's appearance really started to change. He was more gray in color than pink, and the tiny black thread on his left eye started to unravel. "My Bunny is angry," Ava said quietly as she twirled the thread through her fingers. This was a phrase repeated for quite a few weeks. "Poor Bunny," she said, and she kissed his face so gently.
I later fixed the eye when her "angry bunny" phase wore out and soon enough he returned to his Bunny self. He continued to follow her wherever she went and when strangers would stop to say hello, Ava always said, "Hi, this is Bunny!" And she would hold her visibly loved and worn and sometimes smelly bunny right up in their faces.
Tonight as we tucked into bed, we stepped away from our usual short bedtime stories and I took on one of much longer length to test her attention span. I grabbed her copy of "The Velveteen Rabbit" that Ava's Great Aunt Jayne had given her and we made it through page by page.
When we got to the end of the story the fairy was giving life the rabbit, "She held the rabbit close and she flew with him into the wood..." the book read. I told Ava to hold her Bunny close and she gave him a tight squeeze. "...And she kissed the little rabbit again," I read and told Ava to kiss her Bunny. "Run and play, little bunny!" the Fairy said.
"Ava, say run and play to your bunny!" I said to her.
"We can't! Bunny doesn't know how to hop!" Ava replied. "We have to teach Bunny. Maybe we can teach Bunny how to hop with a pogo stick!"
Maybe Ava's Bunny will soon grow legs and learn hop like a real bunny with a little help from Ava and a pogo stick. And maybe, like the Velveteen Rabbit, he will become Real and experience a real hop of his own.
"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"
"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that just happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."
"Does it hurt?"
"Sometimes." For he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."-The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams
1 comment:
Beautiful.
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