Broke-down Bunny

I think that this may go down as one of Scott's favorite Claudie stories.

One lovely Sunday afternoon while Scott was mowing the yard, Claudia ran up to him breathless holding a plastic bag. She exclaimed in a panicked voice, "Daddy, I need your help! There is a broke-down bunny! Come on!"

She grabbed Scott's hand and led him across the street from our house and urgently pointed to a dead bunny on the side of the road. She had been biking and come upon this sad scene. She handed the bag to Scott and told him that he needed to take care of the bunny. (She did not like the way the bunny looked at her.) Scott scooped up the bunny and bought it to the garbage can.

Claudia was genuinely sad for the bunny and asked Scott if it was going to be lonely in the garbage can without any of its bunny friends and she thought maybe she could put some toys in the can with it. Scott explained that we throw away a lot of "interesting" things and the bunny would find things to play with in the can. She seemed satisfied with that.

Scott has asked Claudia a number of times to repeat the story of the broke-down bunny and when she is asked what it means to be a "broke-down" bunny, she will say that the bunny "died-ed."

It is sort of a sad and gross story if you think about it, but the part that I like best is that she really did feel for the little bunny and wanted to make sure that it was entertained while awaiting the trip to the dump. (Of course she doesn't really realize where the garbage ends up. I know that we should tell her about landfills and whatnot in order to give her some "green education," but that sure wasn't the time!)

Fall

All I can say is, "Oh my!" We are a busy family here in Chanhassen (or as my sister refers to it "Chan-happin'). We returned from our wonderful trip to The Shore to a very new Fall routine. Claudia started school, soccer and gymnastics the first week that we returned.

Claudia is greatly enjoying school. I think that she is just mostly happy that she isn't relying solely on me for her entertainment. I think that my company grew rather tiresome for her by the end of the summer. She has made a lot of new friends. We are still working on names. I asked her for the first 3 weeks if she played with any friends and she said that she did and when I asked for their names she did not have a clue.

Soccer is fairly hysterical. I don't know if Claudia had ever really kicked a ball before she started that first night. She has improved and is really having fun. She has a particular way of kicking the ball-very danceline-esque with a straight leg that gets pretty high up in the air. She is certainly the only member of her team to skip to the ball while she is playing. She is a great "social ambassador" for her team as well. At the last game, her coach was told by a little girl on the opposing team that "Claudia can't play right now because we are making friends." Claudia did not see any problems with that.

All and all things are going very well. The kids are tired as are Scott and I. I think that I am getting a good glimpse into what the next 15 years are going to be like--CRAZY and BUSY!

See some photos from our great trip and Claudia's soccer in the upper-right corner.