One of the fascinating things about children is how tough and adaptive they are. Just over a week has passed since I brought in our long-time cat to be put to sleep. Over the course of that week, our kids have quickly moved through all 7 stages of grief, and are now wondering when we can get a new pet.
Truthfully, I am not giving my older daughter the credit she deserves. We told the girls that the cat was sick beyond help about 3 hours before I intended to bring her to the vet...to give them a chance to say goodbye. After about 10 minutes of abject sadness, our older daughter perked right up and asked if this meant we could get new kittens. My wife and I were ready, having had this conversation in the past ourselves, because the righting had been on the wall about the cat for a while.
Our answer at the time was that it didn't make sense to get new kittens while we were still in the apartment, but that we would certainly look at getting kittens when we moved into a new house. As a stop-gap, one of us(it really doesn't matter who at this juncture), came up with the idea to stall the girls with the possibility of hamsters, gerbils, or guinea pigs.
Now we fast forward a week...and the girls are asking when they get to have their new pets. I, of course, have done zero research so far, and would have a hard time picking a gerbil out of a line-up of hamsters. I know guinea pigs are the biggest, then hamsters, with gerbils being the smallest. Oh...and gerbils have long tails.
I think sometime this weekend we will end up at the pet store to do a little looking...that will let me stall the girls another week.
I vote for a guinea pig. We had one for 5 years, and he was a real sweetie. I still miss the little guy. Good for teaching the kids responsibility, and fun.
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