I've heard it said that when you die your life flashes before your eyes. I had that experience recently when I dropped off my son at college only it was his life flashing before my eyes. As this was the forth time doing this I thought I was prepared this time... no such luck. As I drove away from the dorms, before I reached the end of the parking lot, willing myself NOT to look in the rear view mirror, I remembered the day he was born. In an instance I remembered what he got for his fourth birthday ( a playmobil fort) and when his brother hit him across the nose with a stick.
My heart began to break as this season of mothering him came to a close. I drove down the streets, tears rolling down my cheeks, not caring who saw me because most of the cars were probably filled with other crying parents. What did I do about this? Why I called my Mother of course. She could commiserate and cry with me. She could remember with me all the years. Mothers are good for that you know.
I got home and Joe and I cried together and then like all good parents we got up, went upstairs and started to throw away everything the boys left behind. Between the two boys we sent off this week and moving brothers into their old room we carted off EIGHT bags of trash and countless to Goodwill. We now have a spotless upstairs (I don't think we've seen that floor in years) and we start a new year of school around here.
Speaking of the other boys, the ones still here.... Yesterday Noble excitedly told us there was a baby bunny on the porch. Apparently Annie our beloved house cat brought us a present of a brand new baby bunny. She often leaves us gifts, but this one was still living! Of course John and Noble were thrilled because they just knew that God had dropped a (much prayed and begged for) new pet right into their laps. I knew baby didn't have a chance and would probably die by morning but like a dutiful mother I sought the advice of professionals (facebook friends and google). I made a late trip to WalMart in search of kitten formula. (who knew such a thing existed) Sadly the best I could do was goats milk. But I figured if bunnies could drink kitten formula, they could probably tolerate goats milk. So I headed home armed with an eyedropper and a can of goats milk.
John was an excellent mother and cradled bunny (now named Wallace) in his arm (baby bunnies nurse on their backs) and dropped tiny drops of milk into bunny. He seemed to perk up a little as I coaxed him to pee with a wet cotton ball... (the website said to mimic the mommy but licking it was out of the question). The boys wrapped Wallace up and settled him down for sleep.
Morning came only to find Wallace's cold limp body in the cage. Tragically as the boys were having the viewing the feline perpetrator of the murdered bunny crawled up on the porch and dropped another one at our feet. Here we go again. As we learned mother bunnies only are in the nest once in the morning and once in the evening to nurse them (can you say bad mothership?)Brother bunny, Flavio, was in even worse shape so by the time we got home from church we held a dual funeral.
As you can see this has been an emotional week all the way around.
