Loving Peri

Peri Pictures

Rescuing Peri, Our New Pet

A day that the girls have been anticipating for a LONG time: the day we would rescue a pet rabbit, only to take him home and love it all the days! : )

Mamma had done a LOT of research on line and we easily rescued "Periwinkle" (or "Peri" for short). He is a bi-color, holland lop rabbit (already litter trained and neutered, . . . and only $25). Leia Rose thought it was an absolute sign that "Peri" was already his name! So we let Annie choose Peri's middle name: Macaroni. Ha! As soon as they brought Peri out, he wanted to jump right up and love us!

Here is Peri riding home in the car with Leia and Annie tempting him with broccoli.

I was expecting Annie and Leia to love our rabbit, but what I was NOT expecting was how much in love BRIAN was! : ) The first day, Peri was just learning to love his cage and Brian would sit on the floor of the laundry room and just watch and pet Peri. No one was more surprised than me! : )

In the days that followed, Peri would truly become part of our family. There were hardly any issues. He immediately adjusted to using his new litter box in his cage (without any cage accidents). When out of his cage, he also chose another spot only a few yards away in the hall (???) to do some extra business. We heard this is the case with many house-rabbits, so a second small litter box in the hall did the trick. : ) Of course there's a lot more vaccuming on our main floor now (because Peri is only allowed the run of the kitchen/dining/family room). And there was a small scare where Mamma thought she was allergic to Peri (until she figured out that it was really the black tea she had been drinking). The only other issue was Peri's adjustment period. It made him seem like a loner for a couple of days (heck, he was used to being locked in a cage for his whole life), but as soon as he got to know us, he was begging to be petted and dying to explore. Peri's favorite thing is to hop up to us on the floor, snuggle next to our body, and be petted all over (even behind the ears and on the tail)! He also loves apples. ; ) Never a nip. Never a scratch. SUCH a docile bunny! : )

Pool Time!

Of course, our local pool is always a favorite this summer! Annie's favorite pastime at the pool is jumping in, lifting her dripping hair away from her ears (?), saying "Wannna . . . Do . . . Again!" as she catches her breath, swimming to the side, and jumping again. Repeate about 100 times and, yeah, that's our pool day. : )

Potty Training

Ah yes, another milestone to be achieved this summer: Annie's Potty Training! : ) At first Annie was a dripper, in other words she would drip one drop in the potty chair only to potty all over herself afterwards. Then by the second day she created a system where she would simply make a few drips in her pants, and then move to the chair for the rest. (I thought it was ironic that she truly prefers the small potty chairs over the toilet that she preferred before Disney World.) We always revert when we go anywhere, but we're doing really well at home now! Here is Annie proud of her potty and holding her mug with the M&Ms that she gets as a reward: one for making a potty in the chair, one for making a poopie in the chair, and an extra one for making ALL of each kind in the chair (in other words, none in the pants). Working like a charm, . . . but still a long road ahead.

Summer Dancing Show

On another summer day, the girls decided to create a dancing show to put on for their Mamma! Here they are in their tutus, . . . with Leia Rose showing off her "trick" of catching her boa on her foot. : )

Leia's Pet Parade

Now that we're home for good, it has been a really relaxing summer! : ) Leia Rose has come up with all sorts of fun projects for us to do together. In fact, today she was up in her room for a long time and then came down to announce it was time for the "Pet Parade"! Annie and I went up to Leia Rose's room to find all sorts of "floats" that consisted of many of her animals or figures on books or boxes, . . . she had made up a theme song for each one as she pushed them around the room in a line. Finally, they ended up here (in the corner of her room) in a jumble (that reminded me a lot of how the Macy's balloons end up). Ha! : ) What a fun parade!