The Nocturnal Noise Maker

Rabbits are nocturnal. We knew that when we decided to become rabbit parents. And the truth is we rarely had any problems with the bunnies waking us up at night. It seemed that having the lights out made them calmer and less likely to make noise.

Although I will point out how we ridiculously spoil our furry friends by noting each bunny does have a nightlight in his/her favorite spot.

When Brett started working the night shift, I was transported back to my childhood and my innate fear of the dark (and of vampires who looked like Tom Bosley. But that’s another story). So, I began sleeping with the bathroom light (okay, okay, and the closet light, the bedside lamp, and the hall light) on.

The rabbits then seemed to come alive at night. Peyton would jump on the bed (something he had never done and has never done since) to make sure I was okay (often when I was sleeping and would then wake up and scream thinking in my clouded brain that giant furry rats were coming to devour me).

Hannah would try to pull the AC vent out the floor with her teeth. Both bunnies would chase each other around all night playing, leaping, and jumping. It kept me up all night. But the noise was better than the dark, and I managed to survive.

When Brett started working days again, things went back to normal. The bunnies settled down at night like before. Then, this past week, at 2:00 a.m., we heard an unusual scraping noise. We looked around our bedroom in the dim light and couldn’t see anything. I finally made out Hannah’s lumpy shape sprawled on the floor, and then we started looking for Peyton.

Peyton is often the hardest bunny to find since he is (a) brown and blends in with everything. On occasion, Brett and I have both thought he was a pair of socks, underwear, or a discarded clothes heap on the floor (b) a great hider and (c) often doesn’t want to be found. Still, we couldn’t find him.

THEN, I saw a tip of brown peeking out of a white bucket on a shelf – a shelf three and a half feet off the ground! It was Peyton!

How on earth he managed to jump three feet up and land directly in the middle of a bucket, I’ll never know. He had to jump directly into the bucket, since had he jumped anywhere else on the shelf; he would have caused an avalanche of books and bunny toys.

The poor little guy was so confused. He couldn’t hoist himself out of the bucket, so he’d started turning in circles to see if there was an exit - but to no avail. So he’d finally resorted to hooking his front paws over the side of the bucket and pushing his nose up as far as possible (hoping, I guess, that Mom or Dad would see him).

Which we almost didn’t in the dark. Thankfully, he’s overdue for a nail trim, and the noise that woke us was his nails scraping the side of the bucket.

Poor little befuddled bunny! I covered the bucket (so he wouldn’t jump out as I lowered the bucket) and put the bucket on the ground, so he could jump out. He immediately ran around my ankles in a happy freedom dance, before heading to Hannah (no doubt to extract some sympathy grooming and impress her with tales of his valiant adventure).

Brett and I just sat in bed laughing and bemoaning our current no-camera status!

And people think rabbits are pets without personality! Ha!