Warning: This post is rated PG13 for sexual references....Blackberry

This is Blackberry.

And this.

And this:

While I'm giving you time to recover from the cuteness, let's talk a bit about my sweet little bunny.

As all of you who have read my blog from the beginning(or at least from February) know, Blackberry is a now-nine-month-old Holland Lop and NOT a girl, like I was once convinced of. He has always been such a little puffball that it's been impossible to judge scientifically before now. But NOW I can tell you that yes, certainly, Blackberry is definitely a boy. Also, as the title suggests, he has had lots of....issues for a few months. Let's just say you don't want to get anywhere near him in the spring.

For the first eleven years of my life, I was blissfully unaware of any of the most repulsive things of adulthood and naively assumed that when a couple was married, pop! one night a baby just magically appeared in the wife's belly and started growing, until, nine months later, there was a lot of fuss and shouting in a hospital or(like in my little sister's case) a nice lady with a black bag showed up at your house and helped pop the baby out. Then, a few hours later, a new small red scrap of humanity would join the family with a LOT of noise. My guess about animal reproduction was a lot closer--I knew even as a little kid that two animals needed to "mate" to make baby animals, but the knowledge from there was much like the human guess, just minus the midwife/hospital. I had absolutely no idea how the reproduction actually took place. And then came the revelation, when my sister gave me a book and a small and awkward talk. (I remember the first question out of my mouth was, "Why is it 'the birds and the bees'?") For the record, I DID NOT need to see the pictures in that book twice!! Anyway, when Blackberry started getting more destructive, and also started trying to, well, you know......Then I knew the awkward truth, as much as I wish it weren't true. Facts are facts, and the fact is, Blackberry is a boy. And you know what? I'm okay with that. BUT the other problem is that he hasn't been neutered and his....maturity gives him excessive energy. Here's his usual nightly agenda:

10:00pm---11:30pm: Eat newspaper from litter box. Also rip it up LOUDLY and stomp on the little pieces as hard as possible.

11:45pm---1:00am: Start trying to construct tunnel to Taiwan through bottom of cage.

1:00am---1:30am: Crawl into his box and jump up, thunking the box into every wall possible.

1:30am---3:00am: Sleep(the only quiet thing he does all night.).

3:15am---3:30am: Crunch food as loudly as possible.

3:30am---4:00am: Have a contest with Lola concerning who can drink faster and click water bottle the loudest(Blackberry usually wins these.).

4:00am---6:15am(when I get up): Sleep.

And it's not like I leave him in his cage all day, it's not that he's bored--he has a little play pen that we set up in grass and dirt so that he can hop around, munch on grass, dig in the dirt, etc., so don't say he's just bored all night. Not to mention the stick, tennis ball, toilet paper tube, empty cardboard tape roll, wooden mobile, salt lick, wooden box hideout, and sponge vegetables he has to keep him amused.

Anyway, even though he might be a pain in the _____ sometimes, I'm glad he's my pet and my nice birthday bunny. And I love him forever!