Mowing the lawn

Remember this picture from last year? I was mowing the lawn and little B was freaking out because it was too loud and so I had to hold him whilst I mowed? Well, not a lot has changed.

First of all, M wants me to make sure that everyone knows that we didn't mow the lawn the same day we took his birthday pictures, he's just wearing the same shirt. Now that that's out of the way.... I told him that I was going to mow the lawn. I told him that it was going to be loud. He said "K." and went and stood on the little slab of cement we have by our back door. I turned the lawn mower on and Little B burst into tears. He came over to me and held his hands up for me to pick him up. I did and he told me that he wanted to get down. I put him down and told him he could go in with M and K. They were home for spring break and they wanted to go in while I mowed. Anyway, he shook his head, grabbed onto the lawn mower and started walking with me. He cried the whole time he was pushing it. I kept leaning down telling him that he could go play with the kids in the house. He told me no and kept pushing. I turned it off in case it was the sound that was making him too nervous to go in with M and K. As soon as it was off, through his tears he pointed at it and said,"what's that?" I told him that it was the lawn mower. I asked him if he wanted to go in. Still crying he said,"No! And help you."  So, through my sweat and his tears, we mowed the lawn! Thankfully he had had enough of mowing the lawn by the time the bunny incident happened. K had come outside and was jumping on the trampoline. I was mowing along and a bunny went jumping through the exceedingly long grass. It hopped through the grass and settled in right next to the fence. I was watching it to make sure that I didn't run over it. I got right behind it and it just sat there. I walked in front of the mower and stomped my foot right next to it. It jumped away after just a few stompings of my foot. K yelled from the trampoline,"I see it! It hopped under the fence by Rod's house." Rod is our neighbor. I finished mowing the back and went to the front. Have I mentioned that I hate the grass here? It's thick and so long and takes a really long time to mow. Anyhow, I was mowing the front and got next to the fence by Rod's house. Now, when I say the grass is long, I mean really long. From the side of the mower, the wheels are almost covered by the grass and I mow the lawn once a week. It just grows really fast. So, I'm mowing along thinking about how I'm almost done and getting very excited when all the sudden I hear this awful sound. I know that I've just run over something. I hear the sound and think, oh please be a BIG stick and not the little bunny. As we all know thinking is really fast, so I hear the sound, think the thought and see the puff of fur that blows out from around all sides of the lawn mower almost as the same time. I was truly horrified when I pulled the lawn mower back and saw a red puddle in the grass. It was so sad! I prayed and prayed saying that I was so sorry about hitting the little bunny. Why didn't it move? Why would you just sit there when a very large, loud thing was roaring towards you? Why wouldn't you hop away? When I emptied the bag I tried not to look, but it was like a bad kissing scene on TV, I just couldn't look away. To say I was upset as the little ball of fur came tumbling out of the bag would be a huge understatement. When we mow the lawn here, we put the clippings on the side of the road and every Thursday, the city comes and sucks up your lawn things with a vacuum truck thing. I was thinking that I had gotten the clippings there before the truck came. I was wrong. For a week the grass clippings that were now the burial site of a little bunny sat by our sidewalk as a reminder of what had happened. B is a big bully and if something bad happens, like a shooting in a major city, he'll say something like, "That's probably like running over a little bunny with the lawn mower." Then he laughs as I punch him. It's safe to say that now when I mow the lawn, I'm really jumpy and if I see a clump of grass that the lawn mower doesn't suck up, I have to kick it apart so that my brain doesn't turn it into the remains of a poor innocent bunny. Maybe I should just leave all lawn mowing responsibilities to Little B. He might cry the whole time, but at least he would leave the bunnies in the grass alone.