Runaway Bunny

"...'If you are a gardener and find me,' said the little bunny, 'I will be a bird and fly away from you.' 'If you become a bird and fly away from me,' said his mother, 'I will be a tree that you come home to.'" - The Runaway Bunny, Margaret Wise Brown

This is Maeve's favorite page in The Runaway Bunny.  When I read up until this point, she will furrow her brow and clap at me, which means more around here.  I am not to finish reading the book, I must continue to read the bird/tree page over and over until she is satisfied.

My little bunny is funny that way; a week ago she would not sit still for that book for any reason, then Daddy started reading to her last weekend, and now she's hooked.  It's a relief that her favorites change regularly, I'm happy not to be reading her the same 7-page book over and over for six months.

But my heart melts when I read The Runaway Bunny to her, especially that page.  I would love to be the tree she comes home to, my little bunny-bird.  I love the whole book, because to me the moral of the story is that mothers are relentless and we will always win.  Or maybe it's supposed to be that a parent's love is unconditional...                       

Maybe I love it because the picture she loves is a tree, and I know she loves trees, so it's lovely to think that she could see me as a tree to come home to.  But also, in the core of my heart, I am loving that she is here, and home, with me, and I want her always to come back here whenever she needs me. 

Or else I shall become the wind, and blow her where I want her to go; a gardener to find her in a hidden garden; a mountain climber to climb to her on a high mountain; a tightrope walker in the circus to walk across the air to her; a fisherman in a trout stream to catch her; because she will always be my little bunny.