Knuffle Bunny Love

It has been quite a while since my last post.  I hold Knuffle Bunny responsible.  You see, Alasdair and I fell in love with Knuffle Bunny.  The first and second books in the series arrived in our house on the same day, and so at bedtime we read with the first.  Alasdair and I both thought it was great, and we read through it several times.  Then I couldn't contain my curiosity, so we read the second one (Knuffle Bunny Too), and Alasdair enjoyed it even more than the first, maybe because Trixie (or Trixies as he says) had grown up a bit.  And so for several weeks we would read Knuffle Bunny two or three times an evening.  He loved the first page where he would point out the dog (he called her Sadie), Trixies, her daddy, the squirrel, and he always waved bye bye to Trixies mommy.  He was intrigued by the events that unfold in the classroom, leading up to Ms. Greengrove confiscating the bunnies for the afternoon, and he was quite concerned that there was some pushing going on at the playground.  I think he also was puzzled by the antagonist, Sonja, because of the Sonja that he knows.  And he would always give me a hug when we reached the end and Trixies and Sonja hug.  Oh, Knuffle Bunny, how could I not love you?

I love Knuffle Bunny because I can relate.  I can understand the panic when Trixies' parents realize that Knuffle Bunny is missing.  I mean, we have not one, not two, but three identical wooden Percy engines.  I like how Trixie 'ate' her dinner, and devoured her dessert (sounds just like a little guy that I know).  And I love the looks that her parents exchange when at 230 in the morning Trixie reports that she has the wrong Knuffle Bunny.  But most of all, I love that Trixie is a girl.  I don't know a lot about children's literature, but it sure seems to me like there are a lot of boy characters.  I know there are girl characters, but they are often in books targeted specifically towards girls.  Otherwise, authors seem to default to boy.  In Knuffle Bunny, the story would work just as well whether Trixie was a girl or a boy, and I am so glad that Mo Willems made her a girl (I  am also hoping that someone reading this will send me some book suggestions that prove me wrong).

Anyway, I have had Knuffle Bunny on the brain (and in my heart), and it has created a complete blogger's block for me.  Until story time tonight when I realized it was Easter and the Easter bunny (but not Knuffle Bunny) visited us this morning.  And that got me thinking and blogging.  We had a great Easter day, with a visit to the zoo this morning, some bike riding this afternoon and then out for dinner this evening.  Alasdair was spoiled rotten.  He got some choo choos from his Uncle Greg, some Hot Wheels from Auntie Terrie and Uncle Richard, and that rascally Easter bunny brought him some sidewalk chalk and a tricyle.

Not that we didn't have our share of meltdowns.  Alasdair did not like it when the wind blew through his helmet, he would cry and say 'airplanes', and so we had to turn back from the windy field where we were planning to take a family photo.  He was also less than impressed this evening just before bed when he decided that he wanted to reassemble his duplo version of James.  We went in search of the base that James sits on (which Alasdair had been using for most of the day as a skateboard despite its miniature size).  I could only find Percy's base, identical to the one James uses except for the green wheels.  I crossed my fingers and started to assemble James on Percy's base, but looking down at Alasdair I could see it was not going to fly.  He was shaking his head and saying 'No, no, no'.  Which is also what he said when I suggested we read Knuffle Bunny this evening.  And so the spell was broken ... perhaps it was more of a Knuffle Bunny infatuation.