[Having four children has broken me of the habit of recording things in the diary. For a New Year’s resolution, I’ll try to make more entries and here it is already the 13th!]

As I turned into the driveway after work, my headlights caught a rabbit running across the back yard in front of the playground and up towards the back fence. Snow was still in the half of the yard near the house where the house shadow had blocked the sun all day.

I came in and told everyone that I saw a rabbit run across the back yard. Kelly was very excited, and went to the window to see the rabbit.

“You won’t be able to see him,” I told Kelly. “He ran away and it is very dark.”

“There he is!” she yelled. “I see him! He’s white! He’s a girl rabbit! I see him!”

Foolish me.

Kelly started giving us regular updates about her rabbit, entering one of her long sessions where we end up ignoring her.

I was standing in the kitchen talking to Kathy, when Kelly came running to me with her hands in the air making noise. She crashed right into me, and then came to an abrupt quiet.

“Hey!” she yelled, with a puzzled look on her face, patting me three times on the zipper area. “You’ve got a rabbit in your pants, Dad!”

Kathy doubled over at the stove, and Nicole had to be sent from the room in stitches. I knew I had to act fast, because if Kelly realized how funny she was, this could become one of her regular routines with others like Grandad, Grandpa, Uncle Ted, etc. I had visions of her patting various members of the family at formal functions and laughing about a rabbit.

“That’s not a rabbit, Kelly,” and I proceeded to tell her the quick truth and give her a lecture about being polite.

She never knew how funny she was.