The Velveteen Rabbit

Tucking the kids in tonight was great. Andy is gone for the evening and we took our time getting ready for bed with showers and teeth brushing and potty and prayers (great prayers, too. . .Tiki tells God all about his day; it is the only way that I have any idea what he did. . .God gets the total play by play. Dax prays that tomorrow will be awesome sweet. Gabby starts her prayers with the only six words of "Jesus Loves Me" that she knows, "Jesus loves me this I know" and then she starts her prayer).

After that, we still had about thirty minutes to spare, so I pulled out one of my favorite books (one that made the trip with me to Durango from my Gran'ma's house this year): the Velveteen Rabbit. I haven't read that book in years, but it is always on my mind. I was the little girl who loved her stuffed animals so much that their "skin" rubbed off. I truly believed that a select few of my animals (Whitneyozen, Lt. Bondz and James to name a few) were real. I loved them until they became real and they are still in my kids' toy closet today.

However, tonight I read the book from a mother's point of view and it was so much sweeter. Below are a couple of excerpts. . .see if you know what I mean (remember, the Skin Horse is the oldest and wisest toy in the nursery):

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day. . . .

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand. . . . but once you are Real you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always."

The Rabbit sighed. He thought it would be a long time before this magic called Real happened to him. He longed to become Real, to know what it felt like; and yet the idea of growing shabby and losing his eyes and whiskers was rather sad. He wished that he could become it without these uncomfortable things happening to him. . . .

And so time went on, and the little Rabbit was very happy--so happy that he never noticed how his beautiful velveteen fur was getting shabbier and shabbier, and his tail coming unsewn, and all the pink rubbed off his nose where the Boy had kissed him. . . .

The Boy sat up in bed and stretched out his hands.

"Give me my Bunny!" he said. "You mustn't say that. He isn't a toy. He's REAL!"

When the little Rabbit heard that he was happy, for he knew that what the Skin Horse had said was true at last. The nursery magic had happened to him, and he was a toy no longer. He was Real. The Boy himself had said it.

That night he was almost too happy to sleep, and so much love stirred in his little sawdust heart that it almost burst. And into his boot-button eyes, that had long ago lost their polish, there came a look of wisdom and beauty, so that even Nana noticed it next morning when she picked him up. . . .

Weeks passed, and the little Rabbit grew very old and shabby, but the Boy loved him just as much. He loved him so hard that he loved all his whiskers off, and the pink lining to his ears turned grey, and his brown spots faded. He even began to lose his shape, and he scarcely looked like a rabbit any more, except to the Boy. To him he was always beautiful, and that was all that the little Rabbit cared about. He didn't mind how he looked to other people, because the nursery magic had made him Real, and when you are Real shabbiness doesn't matter. . . .

Can you see, how from a mother's point of view, that story is even sweeter than it was to me (to you) as a child? It made me rethink the "looks" thing a little bit and it made me think about my "sharp edges" and having to be "carefully kept." I am so thankful that I am real and I hope that as the days go by, more and more velvet rubs off of my nose from sweet kisses from my children!

I AM BLESSED!