My small comma in the dirt

Mr Rabbit is unlocking some new characteristics as he heads toward two and a half. Namely, obstinacy, cheekiness, and a vigorous defence of his right to do Everything His Way All The Time. It's okay, because he's also big on the kisses and the love and the long, wayward chats about animals and food and plans and trains and buses and animals some more. On the way home last night, we established that the blue-ruffed lemur ate pears and apples and peas and spaghetti and sorbet, that it slept in a tree and sometimes with Rabbit, that it liked to sit on the sofa and watch Shaun the Sheep, that it liked cuddles.So with all of that in the mix, I guess we can cope with the new big-ness and there-ness of Rabbit's personality, and with the havoc he can wreck in the shortest time. Besides, he throws the most gentle tantrum you ever did see.He was tired at the farmers' market today and not very keen on our choices of direction and purchase. So every now and then, he would put his shopping bag on the ground and lie down on it, a small, pale comma against the dark ground, breath quiet, fingers knuckling in the dirt for a handful of stones. I knelt beside him and ran my hand down his back. "Are you cross, little one?" I asked. "Yes," he said. And after a little while, he would get up and we'd wander on.I guess he has the hit the decks part of the tantrum sorted, but hasn't yet worked out that you're supposed to include kicking and screaming. Or maybe he's just doing it his way, as he does everything else.Maybe he's just finding his own scaffolding for the cross times, for when he needs to build a whisper-thin shell between self and world.