We are related to apes

Kay seems to be going on an ape spree lately.  She's watched Gorillas In The Mist and Rise of The Planet of The Apes in the space of a few days. I've seen her devouring wiki articles on apes and hominids, too. She tells us that they are related to us. I was flabbergasted! How is that even possible. We're nothing like them.  She said that her species (homo sapiens sapiens, even though she sometimes like to say otherwise) and those apes descended from a common ancestor.  And since we are related to her, we are related to them, too. Actually I think if you go back far enough I'm sure we have a common common ancestor anyway.

Real isn't how you are made

“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 happen often 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.” 

 - Skin Horse to the Velveteen Rabbit.

Kay's smelly perfumey lotion

Kay has this bottle of lotion that Mum gave her many months back, but she rarely uses it.  Yesterday, she put some on her hands and arms or something because I think her hands are dry and all of her other creams and lotion ran out and then later she cuddled me...and now I, especially my face, smell like that icky lotion! Yuck! I don't like it!  It's so strong and pungent!  Actually it's not so bad - it's jasmine scented but it's about 10 times stronger than it really needs to be! Gosh! Overkill much? Humans are just unbelievable sometimes - with sense of smell this poor a hungry lion could be sneaking up on them and they would be none the wiser...and of course it's up to me again to look out for them.  Thankfully I only have one human to look at for...for now anyway.  Also, I don't think it's proper for guys to smell like jasmine! Hmph!

-B

I love kisses!

I know that I'm pretty unconventional for a guy.  I unashamedly admit that I LOVE kisses!  Both giving and receiving. And not just from anybody! I only like kisses from and kissing my family.  For me, it's a way to show affection and love, and it feels so comforting to feel Kay or A kissing and hugging me!  I feel so loved! I know Stephen would do it too but he's so far away for now.

Well, I guess thinking about it, it's really not that unconventional. It's only unconventional if gender stereotypes are to be believed in the first place.

-B

I (A) had a bath today

Today Kay decided I'm really dirty and that I really need a bath.  I of course protested, I mean, come on, it was only a year since my last bath! Well actually I don't remember, and neither does Kay.  It's been that long!  But anyway, I don't like baths because it's wet and cold and I stay wet for a few days afterwards, which means a prolonged lack of cuddles from my sister. So hmph, I don't like it! I tried to tell Kay that I don't WANT a bath! I kind of freaked out a bit tbh, but it was Stephen who convinced me.  he said that I'll get extra cuddles if I bathe, so I was like, hmmmm fine.  So I soaked for a bit in the soapy water nicely and quietly, but when Kay started scrubbing me, she tore a bit of the skin on my arm where it was a bit sore.  Ouch! There's a scratch but otherwise it isn't too painful, but Kay totally freaked! Poor Kay, I am actually more worried about her than I am about myself.  Stephen told her I'll be OK (which I am), which calmed her down.  Now I'm just waiting to be completely dry so that I can get those extra cuddles!

the family complaint department

our sister's battle cry of the recent years has been, "I'm TELLING A and B!!!!" and it seems like our parents are following this as well.  Basically, anything that ails or upsets Kay is going to be told to us.  We of course hate to see Kay upset so we'll yell at whatever that's giving her grief., even if it's just for show because most of the time it's just some inanimate object.

But anyway, Kay's default coping mechanism seems to have become, 'tell A and B', and our parents seem to have decided to join in too, so we decided to do this formally and set up the complaint department.  We also have a new member of the department, Piggy.  He's a lot bigger than us so he'll be the one doing the looking intimidating stuff and a lot of other stuff that is inconvenient for us to do because of our diminutive stature.  He's been a great help so far!

pigrabbit

So, a while back, my big sister adopted a pigrabbit...That's exactly how you imagine he'd look! He's a rabbit with a piggypoopoo snout.  Thing is, my sister is so taken to him (I don't really know what gender 'it' is - it's not very obvious from the appearance, but from now on, for the sake of simplicity, I shall refer to him as 'he') and she cuddles him, along with us, when she sleeps every night.  She seems to lament that he's not 'real' and she seems to want him to be real so badly, so I htink one day Stephen told her to make that wish when she sneezed, for my sister is one very sneezy girl!  She did that today, and I saw him flinch a bit!  I think we'll be rallied into coaxing him into showing himself!  I'm excited to know what his story is.  It'd be so nice to have a new friend!

Kay drew us

 

I love it when she draws us! It makes me feel so special.  She's an artist and does mainly digital art, and a few days ago she got a bunch of acrylic paints from the art store, and she wanted to start painting in acrylics again but she got all unconfident and stuff.  We offered to model for her, and I saw her getting frustrated many times when she was painting, but I think she did well! Maybe it's because I'm biased because I love her :P....but yeah, I LOVE being drawn! :D (i'm the girl btw)

Silly humans!

Ok we rabbits have ears on the top of our heads.  I look at Kay and my other human family members and always wonder, "how would it be like to have ears on the side of our heads?".  It seems mighty impractical to me!  How are they going to hear from a distance, and what more, their ears are also so puny compared to their bodies!  Well, I suppose they're taller than us...

It's not Year of the Rabbit anymore!

Last Chinese New Year Kay drew this picture of us...well, I guess we have to wait for another 11 years for another one, we'll be soooo old by then :P.

Conflicting self-perception

Kay told us that she grew up believing that we have very strong rabbit identities, even though we were raised with (by?) her and her (our) human family since infancy.  So I'd like to talk about it in this post.

Well, I've always known that something's different with us.  I can't remember when Kay told us that we're adopted, but I remember not being entirely surprised.  I think I was a little more accepting of it than B initially was.  I think what we were concerned the most was whether Kay would still love us as much as she does her (our) human siblings, but she reassured us and we were fine.  However, up until that point I certainly didn't give much of a thought as to what, or who, I was.  I think Kay told us that we're rabbits, but I didn't pay much attention to it, because in my mind the most important thing is that I was Kay and B's little sister.

Our childhood wasn't exactly a walk in the park, in terms of relating to other rabbits.  When we started to venture out on our own (when Kay's not looking) to find other rabbits to make friends with, they've already noticed something that's 'off' about us.  We didn't talk like them, we were totally uninformed on anything that's going on in the rabbit world.  In fact, the only reason we could communicate with them in the first place at that time is because some of the rabbits spoke Human because they lived with humans.

The older ones were kind to us.  They told us that our situation is very unique in the sense that they have not met a rabbit who has a relationship with humans the same way that we do.  The rabbits who live with humans or come into contact with humans are considered by them as 'pets', or sometimes the humans would be 'mommy' or 'daddy' or the rabbits would be their 'children'...though of course both parties know that they don't really believe it.  In all these cases, there's a very sharp boundary between them, usually enforced by the human, like, "I'm a human and you're a rabbit".  This was never the case with Kay and us.  Also, they've never heard of a human adopting rabbits as their siblings before.

The younger ones, however, weren't so nice.  They would tease us mercilessly about our human sister, and how could humans and rabbits REALLY be siblings?! That's absurd, they would say.  It's ludicrous, and it's a joke, they would say.  They would challenge us to find our 'real' family members and how Kay couldn't possibly really love us because we're not her 'real' siblings, and all other mean stuff.  It hurt so much, and for a time we felt really angsty towards Kay...I mean, I would sometimes wish we were raised in a 'normal' rabbit family, and maybe if she didn't adopt us, we would have the chance to find our biological families eventually...though as we grew older we know that she's our REAL sister and those mean rabbits were just being horrible to us because they were envious.  I bet they wish they have a sister like ours!

so much on my mind

A and I keep on meaning wanting to write about our experiences as rabbits being raised by a human girl.  She's our big sister, but at the same time she's like a mother figure, which makes it so confusing.  We don't even know where to start really...

It isn't always easy, but we wouldn't have it any other way.  If we could go back in time and change the future, we would choose the same one - this one.

Evidence of a lost human-rabbit coexistence

We believe that humans and rabbits once co-existed, but due to some grave sin, a moment of transgression committed by ...somebody, they were punish to never coexist again.  All of the collective memories and relics that serve as evidence that this used to happen disappeared overnight, and rabbits were then banished to live in warrens and to be preyed on (no longer enjoy the protection of humans) and humans...to never again benefit from the wisdom of the rabbits.

Overnight, they also lost the ability to talk to each other or even hear each other.   At first it came as a shock, but eventually, well, soon after, the memories of a human-rabbit society disappeared without a trace.

Then we came along - B, Kay and I, a human girl and two rabbits who remember what it was like to live together as kindred.  Maybe this could be a start for us - a journey to redeem humanity and rabbitkind and to reunite them!

You can still see traces of evidence today. If you come across some older houses in Britain, you'll see that on one side of the doors there are little door-shaped indentations:

Of course these are explained away as 'boot scrapers' now, but nobody knew that when rabbits used to coexist with humans, these served as rabbit doors. When they were taken away from us, these doors were all cemented from the inside and had stuff built around them to make them look like they function as something else.

my flat face

I know my face is flat, unlike A's or other rabbits'.  Yeah, I get a little conscious about it sometimes, but the thing is that, if it's good enough for A and Kay and the ladies I've dated, then certainly it can't be so bad!?

Anyway, for a long time, Kay would beat herself up so much over it.  She would tell people that it's her fault, that as a kid she went through this, 'all boys are icky' phase, and sat on my face when we were younger and squashed it while coo-cooing over A, so it ended up like this.

Kay sure has an active imagination!  But the truth is, I was born like this.  If I felt like my face had been squashed, I would have remembered it, even as a youngster.

inauguration post

Ok, so I'm here by the encouragement and recommendation from my sister and her boyfriend.  She said that our sister and I ought to write a blog since we're rabbits who are adopted and raised by a human girl and our experience ought to be extraordinarily interesting.

Oh, before I forget to introduce myself and my ...ahem...cohorts: my name's B, and my rabbit sister and would-be co-author of this blog is A, and our human sister is Kay.  By the way, I wonder if A and I could cajole her into drawing something cute for us to decorate our blog with...

Btw, Kay would like me to share with you the email she wrote to her boyfriend Stephen that started it all:

(she emailed Stephen saying that she saw a book on sale on Amazon that was supposedly written by a bunny, and she wasn't impressed)

I'm reading the sneak preview thing.  It looks too much like a human writing it, pretending to be a bunny :|

...

hmph.

Anyway, even if the bunny really wrote it, well...you know, as much as I love bunnies and are protective of them, I still don't think that there's any  bunny in this world who are even half as brilliant, accomplished, loving, intelligent, charming, cute or adorable as my little siblings.

(BLUSH!!! - B)

To which Stephen replied:

Have A and B ever considered starting their own blog? I think that could be pretty amazing! They must have some really interesting stories to tell as bunnies who grew up as the brother and sister of a human girl.

So there you have it. That's how this blog started.