A couple of years back, Jess bought a box of Annie’s Cheddar Bunnies – basically, organic goldfish crackers shaped like rabbits – one afternoon while we were shopping at Whole Foods.  Later that evening, we sat down on the couch to watch a movie, and she brought out the Cheddar Bunnies, to snack on while we watched.

Halfway through the movie, I asked her to hand me a few.  At which point, she looked into the box, then over to me with a guilty smile; she’d unintentionally eaten the entire box.  I told her she’d probably turned into a Cheddar Bunny herself after eating that many of them.  And, from then on, the nickname stuck.

Shortly after, in response, she tagged me Mighty Mouse, I assume due to the trifecta of small size, big ears, and super(-ish) strength.  And ever since, in texts, emails, and notes, we usually address and sign off as Cheddar Bunny and Mighty Mouse.

Jess has a talent for finding awesome greeting cards.  In the past she’s given me great ones for even minor holidays.  (For Halloween, one with a ghost on the cover that read, “You’re my boo!”; another with two skeletons – one in a tux, one in a wedding gown – holding hands: “Till death do us part is for quitters.”)  But inspired by the nickname, she’s also managed to somehow find, and give to me even on random, non-holiday days, dozens and dozens of mouse and bunny-themed cards.  (“You’re wonderful,” with a bunny dressed as Wonder Woman; “You’re somebunny special”; or, for my birthday, a grey bunny holding a slice of birthday cake: “Oh no, another grey hare!”)

As I realized I could never keep up with finding equally excellent cards in response, I decided to go an alternate route, one requiring just raw time spent rather than card-sourcing skill: I started drawing cards for her myself.

Lest that sound overly impressive, I should first caveat with a note about my artistic abilities: you know how, when you’re in kindergarten, you start by drawing stick figures, and then you move on?  Well, I didn’t.  I’d like to think of my style as sort of “outsider art”, though in truth it looks more like something you might buy at a local fair to support an after-school program for severely mentally-disabled children.

Nonetheless, I have enough enthusiasm to trump my lack of talent.  So, after doing a handful of mouse and bunny cards for our anniversary, and Christmas / Chanukah, I went all out for Jess’ 30th birthday, doing 30 cards for the 30 days leading up to it: Mouse and Bunny out for a run, at dinner together, strolling hand in hand through Central Park, etc. And they were a hit.

So, since then, I’ve been sending hand-made cards to the rest of my family.  Some, like my Father’s Day card to my dad, stand alone. (That one illustrated all the generic ‘dad gifts’ my brother and I have managed to skip over the years, whether ties, golf clubs, or bottles of Scotch.)  But other cards extended the world of Mouse and Bunny to include the rest of my family.

That was aided by the fact/weird coincidence that my brother calls his wife “goat” as a term of endearment.  (I have no idea about the origin, but it predates the bunny/mouse thing by several years.)  Therefore, I already knew how to draw my sister-in-law as an animal.  And, since my brother and parents are related to me, I obviously could just draw them as mice, too (just with different hairstyles, etc.).  Then there’s my niece and nephew, though that was also pretty easy to solve: goat parent plus mouse parent equals goat-colored mouse, or mouse-colored goat.  Thus, for my parents’ birthdays, I was able to draw them cards with the whole family (everyone at the beach for my father, at the ballet for my mom), which were also a hit.

Inspired by those successes, a month or two back, I started working on a next-level attempt: a Mouse & Bunny children’s book for Jess.  Though there’s obviously a series waiting to happen here, I started with Mouse & Bunny Go for a Hike.  I loaded it up with inside jokes, small visual gags, and details I knew she’d appreciate.  And though it took me waaaaaay longer than expected to complete, I think the time definitely paid off.

Not, admittedly, in the quality of the drawing itself, which is as bad as ever. (And given Dan Ariely’s research on the so-called Ikea Effect – “people who have created something themselves come to see their amateurish creations as similar in value to expert creations” – it must be even worse than I’m self-assessing.)  But, at least, it paid off in terms of what I hope it communicated to Jess.

As I’d otherwise have trouble putting into words how mind-blowingly, heart-overflowingly wonderful and awesome and amazing she is, or what a perfect match she is for me, those 20-some terribly illustrated pages at least show how far I’m willing to go to try and communicate that love to her nonetheless.