Mrs. McGregor

Two nights ago, Sean was out late for work, planning to come home just before midnight. Ambree and I had been playing outside, and she skinned her knees for the third time that day. I took her inside to rinse them down with saline and bandage her up, but we were distracted with a diaper change. The whole time the back door was open which isn't at all abnormal for us, especially with the nice weather.

While in her room I heard a rummaging in the living room or kitchen. I immediately thought intruder or rodent. For whatever reason I wasn't entirely afraid. I finished changing her diaper and then decided the sound was maybe the dryer shutting off. But when I rounded the corner to the kitchen I heard Chloe growling and knew that it must be a rodent of some sort. (Chloe would not be growling if an intruder came in. She would begging them to hold her or rub her belly).

Holding Ambree, I peered over to see Chloe had 'cornered' a baby bunny! It was sort of under the cabinets near the sink and dishwasher laying lifeless. My immediate inclination was to find some way to avoid dealing with the problem. Sean spoils me in many ways, but probably most dramatically in the department of service. Things that I don't want to do, he always does for me. It's one way he gives love and one way I receive love. But he was not home and there was no love. Before Ambree I may have just left the bunny there until he got home, but at this point I wasn't entirely sure if it was dead or maybe just playing dead or something. So I just started moving. (When I later told Sean the story, he said he was surprised I didn't just go check into a hotel. After he said that I was immediately disappointed that I didn't take a little more time to sift through all options. Should there be another bunny or any other sort of worse rodent, I may go stay with family, but at the time all I could think of was Ambree and germs).

I took Ambree to her crib, threw a box of toys in the crib for her to play with, in my happiest sing-song voice I told her to play and have fun, Mommy would be right back. All of this is in triple speed, including my heart rate. I went to get my dust pan and went to scoop the bunny up. I am so grateful that we no longer have Ria (our beagle). If she had been here it would have just been one more thing for me to do in all of the chaos, because she would not have just cornered the bunny like Chloe.

Motherly instincts to protect Ambree were enough to squelch my desire to abort my mission, and I scooped the bunny up with my dust pan. I prayed the whole time I was carrying it at arms length that it would not wake up should it just be pretending, then gently put it over the fence, took my dust pan to the trash can, and went to wash my hands.

I am so glad to have a poodle. This is the second time Chloe has helped us find a pest in the house. I did make her stay outside for about an hour afterwards as though that would allow enough time for the germs on her to die, but after researching and talking to friends, I was more confident that Chloe just chased it down until it had a heart attack, and that Chloe may not have had any contact at all.

All that to say, Sean cannot leave town again. Well, he's gone tonite too. Maybe all that to say, I need some sort of bunny fence. Those pests ate all of my esperanza last year.