Delegation

Okay, please forgive me. I have come to the point of not only always writing about my children, but now also writing about the BOOKS that these children are reading. I just couldn't help myself this time because the book was very deliberately borrowed BY ME and FOR ME although I brushed it off as "one of the kids books". It is called "The Country Bunny: And the Little Gold Shoe". The cover alone caught my attention, as it shows a darling women bunny standing centered between 21 bunny babies. These baby bunnies are perfectly dressed: the boys in trousers, bowties and blazers and the girls in little dresses, layered perfectly with cardigans and little bows around their necks. The cover color alone got my attention... CORAL (the color just personifies SUMMER to me). Not to mention it is illustrated by Marjorie Flack (author of "The Story About Ping"... one of our book lessons from "FIAR" back in the Fall).
So here's how it goes... A little country girl bunny promises that someday SHE will be one of the five Easter Bunnies. Everyone laughs, the snobby elitist lady rabbits and the strong macho Jack Rabbits. But she says, "Wait and see!"
When she ends up "just a mother" to her 21 bunnies, people have shoot her one of those "I told you so" attitude (that many of us mums have felt before). They say just worry about all those babies you made (only a moron would go and have all those kids, right?). Obviously a mother could not amount to anything outside of keeping up with the feeding of and caring for her offspring and setting about the household drudgery that is our lot in life (I'm being sarcastic here... although I have been know to grumpily tell my kids that my middle name must be "LAUNDRY"). But NO. She want shake things up a bit and show her fellow rabbits just what a mama is made of. "If you think you're strong, swift, wise and kind then look out for me" (do you know the training she has received from chasing after those little ones?) she seems to say.
Now here is the fun part... trains all 21 of her children to do her work for her so that she can make it to the Easter Bunny tryouts (okay, so the book is more poetic about what she attends).
Well, I could go on and on about this darling little book, but I won't. The thing that struck me is how wise this little mama is. I like her strategy and I have to admit that I too have often thought "who me? just a mother?" (and this sort of negative self-talk). But in the end mamabunny's dream/venture ends with success and reward.
My FAVORITE part of this book is that she if first and foremost her children's mama. She, in the end, returns to them (she is gone only an evening... hmmm sounds like a doula to me!!!) and THEY are her real prize and joy!
Oh, if anyone is looking to train their little bunnies (or at least help them to be able to help themselves) I have an amazing book that I have used in my home for years now (it is one of those where the pages are thinning from so much use/flipping about) it is called, "Montessori from the Start: The Child at Home, from Birth to Age Three" by Paula Polk Lillard and Lynn Lillard Jessen. I LOVE this book.