A few weeks ago, we had a little visitor in our yard.
A baby bunny.
Tiny little thing.
Basically a ball of fluff with ears.
We were outside when I noticed it sitting there, completely still, trying its absolute best to become invisible.
Naturally, my little guy spotted it too.
And he was fascinated.
Can I Pet It?
His first instinct was exactly what you’d expect from a toddler.
He wanted to go see it.
Then he wanted to touch it.
Then he wanted to pet it.
And honestly, I couldn’t blame him.
The thing was ridiculously cute.
But it also turned into one of those simple little teaching moments.
I explained that we could look at the baby bunny, but we couldn’t touch it.
It was a wild animal.
It was probably scared.
And the best thing we could do was give it some space.
He didn’t fully understand all of that, of course.
But he understood enough.
So we stood there and watched.
Ten Minutes of Doing Absolutely Nothing
That bunny barely moved.
For probably ten minutes, we just watched this tiny little creature sit in the grass.
And my son was completely locked in.
No screen.
No toy.
No flashing lights.
Just a bunny sitting there.
I could see the curiosity in his eyes.
He was studying it.
Watching its ears.
Watching its nose.
Trying to understand why it wasn’t moving.
And I’ll admit, I was pretty tickled pink watching him.
Kids can make something incredibly simple feel important.
To me, it was a rabbit in the backyard.
To him, it was something new.
Something alive.
Something he’d probably only really seen in books or from a distance before.
Meanwhile, the Bunny Was Probably Terrified
Of course, the bunny probably had a slightly different interpretation of the moment.
While we were standing there thinking,
“Look how cute he is.”
The bunny was probably thinking,
“Please don’t eat me.”
So eventually we figured we’d tortured the poor thing enough with our staring and left it alone.
I expected that to be the end of the story.
Apparently the bunny had other plans.
Our New Backyard Neighbour
Since then, we keep seeing what I assume is the same little bunny.
Almost daily.
Sometimes it runs across the yard.
Sometimes we catch it sitting somewhere.
And every time my son sees it, he gets excited.
The funny part is that I almost feel like the rabbit knows we’re there now.
I’m sure that’s probably me putting a little too much personality onto a wild bunny.
But there are times when it seems to pop out, run across the yard, and disappear again like it’s making its daily appearance.
We live in a suburban area, and our yard is one of the only fenced-in yards around us.
Maybe it figured out that our yard is a reasonably safe place to hang out.
Maybe there’s good food around.
Maybe there’s a hiding spot we haven’t found.
Or maybe we’re just conveniently located on the bunny highway.
Who knows.
Letting Kids Be Curious
What I’ve enjoyed most about the whole thing is watching my son become interested in the world around him.
Toddlers want to touch everything.
Pick everything up.
Follow everything.
Ask about everything.
And sometimes our job as parents isn’t necessarily to stop that curiosity.
It’s to teach them what to do with it.
You can look.
You can watch.
You can ask questions.
You can be excited.
But sometimes loving something also means leaving it alone.
That’s a pretty good lesson to learn from a tiny bunny.
The Stuff I Want Him to Remember
I know he probably won’t remember this particular rabbit when he’s older.
He may not remember standing beside me in the yard watching it sit completely still.
But I hope these little moments add up.
I hope he grows up being curious about animals.
Curious about nature.
Curious about how things work.
And respectful of things that don’t belong to us.
As adults, I think we sometimes stop noticing little things like this.
A rabbit runs across the yard and we barely look up.
A kid sees the same rabbit and suddenly the whole afternoon becomes interesting.
Maybe that’s one of the nice things about having children.
Every once in a while, they remind you to stop and look at the bunny too.
Leave a Reply