Rabbits and cucumbers

I don't even know how long we've been playing "Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit," but it's been years—regularly, it seems, since at least 2014. We just try to be the first one to say "rabbit, rabbit, rabbit" to everyone else on the first day of each month.

Sometimes we do it by text, such as the time I texted "rabbit, rabbit, rabbi" to Andrew in 2018. 

Sometimes we shove papers under doors or leave drawings on the whiteboard for the kids to wake up to (such as this one from December 2022):

Sometimes the kids run around like mad, shouting it in every corner of the house just to make sure everyone has heard them say it. 

Sometimes we just announce it over Alexa and get everyone all at once. 

It's fairly important to "win" at this game in this household. 

February 1 had multiple winners.

I whispered "rabbit, rabbit, rabbit" into Andrew's ear shortly after midnight. Then the kids got up early in the morning and shouts of "rabbit, rabbit, rabbit" started echoing through the house, but Zoë had woken up extra early and had written "rabbit, rabbit, rabbit" on the whiteboard, so she felt like she was the winner. 

That child, who has such trouble falling asleep, sure can make herself get up early when she wants to. When the weather was quite a bit warmer a couple of weeks ago and the kids were sleeping outside, she willed herself to wake up for the sunrise in the mornings. She'd wake up at like 4:00 and then just...stay awake...so she didn't miss it. 

Here she is reading a book with Phoebe:

Right now it's nearly 2:00 in the morning. Andrew is helping Phoebe settle back down to sleep (she hates sleeping and whenever she wakes up she's always angry about it, like, "Why did you let me fall asleep!?" and then we have to convince her that she's tired again and...it's tiring) and I'm up because before Phoebe got up we were both working on writing projects (and some writers thrive at night, though lately I don't seem to be thriving ever...I'm drowning in writing projects and suffering from the worst writer's block because I'm psyching myself out about my thesis). 

Anyway, I'm obviously at my computer, across the hall from the little kids' rooms and Andrew is taking a turn soothing Phoebe, who is on the bottom bunk, because that's where she sleeps instead of a crib...and suddenly Zoë yells from the top bunk, "RABBIT! RABBIT! RABBIT! Oh, no. Wait. ALEXA, ANNOUNCE..."

And Alexa, obedient little robot that s/he is, responds chipperly, "What's the announcement?"

And Zoë continues sleep-yelling, "RABBIT! RABBIT! RABBIT! There. I really gotzemzishtiiiiiime..."

Her fit fizzled out to a mutter and then a whisper as she rolled over and fell back into a deeper (lighter?) sleep. Who knew she was so competitive?!

If only it had been March 1! She really would have gotten us!

Naturally, this little outburst from sleeping Zoë meant that it has taken Andrew longer to settle Phoebe than it may have otherwise. I should probably go check on him, but first I need to share one more autocorrect/typo story from this evening (since I already shared about rabbit, rabbit, rabbi).

Andrew and I were working with my mom to replace our phones, since we're on her phone plan (because BYU has a rather great family plan). I had to leave, though, to help Phoebe settle back down to sleep (we do this several times a night because...she's a high maintenance baby...and that's fine...we'll get through this). So, Andrew was down figuring things out and I was upstairs texting him about stuff. 

He told me all about which phones he'd decided on getting and why because this model "blah, blah, blah" and that model "blah, blah, blah," and they're a little more expensive up front "but will last forever."

"Forever is probably a stretch," I said, but deferred to his judgement. 

"We'll need to Venmo your mom a bunch of money," he said.

"She wants cucumbers," I wrote.

"...cucumbers..."

"UCCU! She wants us to transfer money through UCCU!"

My phone autocorrected UCCU to cucumber! 

Though, who knows...maybe my mom would take payment in cucumbers as well...