The Bunnies and the Bees
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About eight months after getting our first pet rabbit, Apollo, we decided to get a second one. We always knew the bunny we added to our family would be a girl and she would be named Artemis. These were non-negotiables for obvious reasons.
I had been keeping an eye on the local bunny social media pages for a few months when an ad on Nextdoor caught my eye. A woman who lived within ten minutes of us had fostered a rabbit who was about the same age as our Apollo. The rabbit was a girl named Almond. A girl bunny with a name that started with A? About as good a find as we could hope for.
Of course, nothing is as simple as it seems. First, we had to get Apollo fixed to prevent a baby bunny bonanza. We took care of that within a couple of weeks, and I checked back with the rabbit neighbor to see if Almond-Artemis was still available. She was.
However, Almond-Artemis had picked up an eye injury that required treatment and we had to wait for Apollo’s surgery to be fully effective, so after a few more weeks of back and forth with Rebecca, or Rebecca Rabbit as I labeled her in my phone’s contacts, we arranged a speed dating session for the two buns.
Rebecca Rabbit arrived on a Saturday afternoon with Almond-Artemis in a pet carrier in the back seat of her Crown Victoria. We unleashed the two bunnies on our screened porch, and it was lust at first sight. Rabbits have a particular reputation and it’s safe to say these two more than lived up to it.
“Look! Apollo is hugging her and he’s getting so excited he’s vibrating,” one of the children exclaimed.
“It’s like he’s giving her a massage,” another added.
Apparently, the health video they showed at school last week didn’t cover much of the important stuff.
The rabbits eventually cooled down and/or tired themselves out and returned to more family-friendly activities like sniffing each other and flopping down in very separate locations so there could be no inappropriate touching.
After more discussion about eyedrops and other logistics, we came to an agreement with Rebecca Rabbit that Artemis-Almond could stay over. Pretty forward for a first date, but these are the times we live in.
A few hours later after having to stop my oldest child from regaling yet another of his friends on a video call about Apollo “vibrating” on Artemis-Almond, I became so completely exasperated that I decided it was time to dispatch the subtleties.
“OK. He’s not hugging or vibrating,” I said.
“He’s trying to make babies,” my wife added.
“He can’t because of the surgery, but that’s what he’s trying to do,” I said.
Our son giggled gleefully and said, “How would doing that make a baby?”
“We been over this,” I said, feeling even more exasperated because we had been over this. “He’s trying to stick it in there!”
My wife was laughing hysterically at this point, but it had to be done. Finally, he seemed to get the message.
“Oh,” he said with a gleam in his eye. “This is even better. I can’t wait to tell my friends!”
“NO!” both my wife and I exclaimed in unison.
Time really can sneak away from you when you’re not looking. One day your child is a baby laughing uncontrollably at peekaboo and the next he’s on the verge of adolescence laughing uncontrollably about bunnies putting it on each other.
Life with kids is certainly never dull. And neither, apparently, is life with a very vociferously bonding pair of bunnies. My apologies in advance to any of our kids’ classmates who have not had the bunnies and the bees talk yet. I have a feeling they may be about to get it.