With Valentine’s Day approaching, I have been trying to choose books about love for my daughter, Juliet, and I to read together each night. I want her to know how deeply and unconditionally I love her and also how God’s love for her far surpasses my own great love.

As I looked at our shelves the other night, The Runaway Bunnyby Margaret Wise Brown jumped out at me. “That’s perfect!” I thought to myself. We’ve read this book a million times before, but we’ve never had a conversation about how God loves us as unwaveringly and as fiercely as the mother bunny loves her little bunny.

If you’ve never read the book, it begins like this:

“Once there was a little bunny who wanted to run away. So he said to his mother, “I am running away.” “If you run away,” said his mother, “I will run after you. For you are my little bunny.”

“If you run after me,” said the little bunny, “I will become a fish in a trout stream and I will swim away from you.” If you become a fish in a trout stream,” said his mother, “I will become a fisherman and I will fish for you.”

The story continues in this way with the little bunny coming up with another and yet another thing to turn into and his mother responding with how she will chase after him and find him NO MATTER WHAT. It’s a beautiful story of unconditional love.

As I thought about the picture of love presented in this book, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the love stories of the Bible such as the book of Hosea, the story of the prodigal son, and the greatest love story of all: Jesus coming to earth and becoming human just because He loved us so much. No matter how far we ran from him, and no matter what we became, He was willing to leave heaven behind and give up His life because we are His children and He loves us.

I thought to myself, “This is going to be great! We’re going to read a great book together AND have a meaningful spiritual conversation!”

It didn’t exactly turn out that way. Here’s what happened:

As we began reading the story together, Juliet asked me, “Mommy, why is that bunny running away? and I said, “Why do you think he is running away?” and she said, “To join the circus!” (Towards the end of the book, the bunny tells his mother he will join the circus.)

I took this moment to tell her that I was like the mother bunny and that if she ever ran away, I would always go after her because she was my little bunny. She just sort of nodded and then we continued reading.

A few pages later, Juliet suddenly jumped up, and exclaimed, “I’m the little bunny!” and ran away. I put the book down and proceeded to chase her down the hall and tackle her in my room.

I again reminded her that I would always catch her because she was my little bunny. She smiled, giggled, and then announced, “I’m a butterfly, I’m going to fly away from you!” and ran down the hall. I responded with, “I’m a net and I will catch you!”

We played this spontaneous little game over and over again—she was a little bird; I was a nest. She was a lady bug; I was a little girl with a bug-catcher. She was a roley poley, and I was a pile of dirt. Again and again, she ran away from me, and again and again I caught her.

Then we sat down, finished reading the book, and got ready for bed. As I tucked her in, I said, “God is like the mother bunny, too. No matter what you do, no matter how far you run away from Him, He will always come after you because you are His little bunny and He loves you.”

And she said, “Hey. You have hair in your nose.”

So maybe we didn’t get the meaningful spiritual conversation in, (we did have a discussion about the benefits and purposes of nose hair) but we did make some memories and invented a fun, new game! Even though she wasn’t really ready to talk about God’s love for her, I think the seed was planted.

And like that mother bunny, I’ll keep chasing her down and telling her tirelessly about God’s love, over and over again. And the best part is, I don’t have to do it on my own. He won’t stop His pursuit of her either.

Vanessa is a regular contributor to Impress Your Kids. She is a stay-at-home mom to an energetic three-year-old, Juliet. They spend their days together reading books, attempting crafts, and occasionally beating tree trunks with large sticks. You can read more about their adventures at Silly Eagle Books.

I would like to introduce to you my youngest son, Donovan.

Donovan turned two years old just a bit before Christmas.  He is a boy’s boy and a class clown already.  He loves to wrestle and make people laugh, and when there’s tickling going on anywhere, he is right there in the middle of it.  He looks more like his Daddy than his Momma, and Thomas the Tank Engine is his favorite.  He’s strong-willed but loving… a climber and a cuddler.  He loves hot Italian sausage, and he eats most of what I put in front of him no matter what it is.

He also does not speak.  He tries, and I know he is learning words, but he is on the slow spectrum for speech at his age.  He has maybe 10 words he uses a lot – about the same that Elias had at one year old.  And that’s my problem – at 15 months old, Elias was speaking in complete sentences, and at 2 years old, we were having full conversations with him.

Elias has been my “normal” so long that I don’t know what to do with this “new normal” kid I have. Because Donovan is normal for a 2 year old.  But because he is mostly non-verbal, I forget that he’s getting older… that he is able to learn and do more than I think he can… that with Elias at 2 years old I was already starting pre-school activities (and soon after, hopping on this blog with Amanda).

So what do I do with this “new normal?”  Most of my “teaching” attention has been focused on Elias or such a long time, with my energies towards Donovan focused on keeping him busy while I do something with his big brother.  I even posted about that here.  No more!  My littlest man needs to become a man of God, too!

I’ve been thinking for a while about what I can do with Donovan, since his learning style is already so different from Elias (I’m trembling at the thought of the homeschool-years yet to come!)… and one thing I’ve hit upon is music.  Even though Donovan does not sing words to songs, he makes up songs all the time, and sings “Dah dah dah…” to songs he already “knows.”  And he loves to sit and listen to me sing – so that’s one thing I’m doing with him now.  While we’re cuddling, I start to sing… before bed, I sing… grace before meals, I sing…  and Donovan sits there and soaks it in.  We also are playing the Seeds Family Worship CDs a lot again, and when I can, I sing those to him, too.

Donovan also loves books – why is it that as a new parent, I read non-stop to my first born, but when baby # 2 came along, the reading slowed down to a slow crawl?  Time to pick that back up again – and pick up some wonderful Scripture-based books for Donovan!  We already love the Jesus Storybook Bible and the Mrs. Rosey Posey books… does anyone have any other scripturally-sound/based books that they would recommend for the “younger” set?

So you’ll be seeing a lot more of Donovan here on Impress Your Kids…  and more ideas geared towards younger kids again.  Do you have any requests/suggestions/concerns/ideas you’d like to see addressed for the non-verbal/2-and-under crowd?

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Respectfully submitted to Real Life’s Your Life Your Blog!

The Importance of Reading To Your Children at Simple Homeschool

The EB White Read Aloud Awards {such a great list of books!}

The Grow So Fast? by Scribbit {a really thoughtful post about kids growin up too fast…and not fast enough}

Birthday Book Box and Birthday Books by Silly Eagle Books {the best birthday idea ever!}

From the fruit of his lips a man girl is filled with good things as surely as the work of his her hands rewards him. Proverbs 12:14 (de-emphasis mine!)