Bedtime And Runaway Bunnies

Here was bedtime at our house last night.

This was snapped (sorry, these are all iPhone pics so the quality is not so good) right after I told Lily it was time to go "nigh nigh." She did not take the news well.


Nathan showing his bedtime reading material. Pokemon Black and White.


Matthew is already reading in bed.


And Dada reading to Aaron. Dave and Aaron have really bonded since Lily came home. I am often busy at bedtime trying to put Lily down first, so Aaron has been requesting (and even preferring) to have Dave read to him instead of Mama. It's all good :-).


Speaking of bedtime reading, this is one of our favorite board books.


I've been meaning to write about this for awhile. It is by Margaret Wise Brown, the same author who wrote Goodnight Moon (another favorite). All of my kids love this book (but perhaps not as much as their mom does). They can practically recite it from memory, I think. Basically the book is about this little bunny who tells his mother he is going to run away. She says that if he runs away she will run after him because he is her little bunny. When he says he will turn into a fish and swim away. . .

She says she will become a fisherman and fish for him. . . (love how the bait at the end of the fishing line is a carrot!)


Then he says that he will turn into a bird and fly away. She says she will become a tree that he comes home to :-).


When he says that then he will become a sailboat and sail away, she says she will become the wind and blow him where she wants him to go. . . (love the bunny ears that are sails - see why I love this book so much?)


I have not included the entire plot, but at the end he gives up and says that he should just stay with Mama and be her little bunny.



And when Nathan was a wee thing, when I would get to this illustration at the end of the book, he would add the line, "And have nummies." Nummies is his word for nursing. It kind of looks like the mother bunny is nursing her baby in the rocking chair, no? And I love the bunny's stripey pajamas!

At the very end of the Runaway Bunny, when the baby bunny knows he will never be able to elude his mother, he says, "Shucks! I might just as well stay here and be your little bunny." And he does.

I remember when I introduced this book to a fellow mom, she asked, "Why does he keep wanting to run away?"

Good question. Seems like he has a good life. A mother who adores him and relentlessly pursues him (even in his imagined fantastical plans of running away) and will become whatever is needed to bring him back home. "For you are MY little bunny," she says. Even the first time I read this book, it made me think of the LORD.

It made me think of how many names He has. There is a whole list here. Jehovah Jireh (the Lord will provide), The Chief Shepherd, Prince of Peace, Wonderful, Counselor, Advocate, El-Roi (the strong one who sees). The list goes on (and I don't even know if this particular list is complete). It is amazing to read through them and think about all of these things that the LORD is, and how we can know these aspects of His character.

It makes me think of how He is just obsessed with us - and wants us to be *His." How He can become whatever we need to bring us to Him. And of course, why do we keep running away? But the Lord is always doing more, waiting longer for us to really be His and not be restless.

I bet I could write "The Runaway Chenning" with not as cute illustrations, telling the on going story of how the Lord keeps showing me how wonderful and able He is, and how He keeps pursuing me and bringing me back to Him.