The uncomfortable truth: explaining a pet death to your child

It's been three days since we decided to put Tina, the Meatball's guinea pig to sleep. Three days of the Meatball asking when Tina would be back from the hospital (veterinarian). Three days of me responding with, "I don't know, Meatball, I guess she's really sick." Three whole days of postponing the inevitable: sitting down with the Meatball and telling her, her guinea pig of a year and a half is dead. Yes, I'm guilty of lying to my child.

Lying to my child about our dear family pet has left me feeling incredibly guilty, especially since it's key to the strategy Pretty Pants and I conjured up and agreed upon regarding Tina's fate. For the past couple months, we started noticing a bald spot emerging from the little guinea pig's back. Unsure what it was and praying it would just go away, the spot just kept growing. For a creature that small, there isn't that much space to begin with. Long story short (and to avoid getting into the gory details), Pretty Pants and I finally decided Tina needed to be checked out by a professional. Two coinciding thoughts were running through our minds about this experience: 1) we sincerely hoped Tina would be okay and the veterinarian could treat her what appeared to be infected spot and 2) this better not cost a fortune for a small guinea pig. After getting the girls ready for school, my husband engaged the Meatball in helping him get Tina ready for the "hospital". He pulled out a shoe box and had Meatball poke holes in the box so Tina could breathe. As Pretty Pants placed Tina in the box, our 2 year old, Spaghetti waved at the box encouragingly, "Bye Tina, bye!", while the Meatball stared pensively at the box she was given to lay on her lap on the ride to school.

After Pretty Pants dropped the girls off to school, he took Tina to the vet. The vet told my husband of our choices. They would have to perform surgery on Tina to remove the bump ($297). They can only test the bump post surgery, meanwhile we would be given medication to treat Tina's recovery (at an additional cost of $150). Yikes. Pretty Pants and I couldn't help but agree that it would be too costly for us to move forward with this scenario, which only left us with the decision no one ever wants to make, not even for their pets. Again we were hit by a slew of costs in various packages! Package 1: Put Tina to sleep, cremate her body and have the clinic spread her ashes over the ocean ($200) Package 2: Put Tina to sleep and cremate her body ($150) Package 3: Put her to sleep ($50 and my husband was able to negotiate a complimentary disposal). Goodness. We did feel slightly guilty for choosing package 3 because we do understand the connection's one can make with their pets. Maybe if Tina were a dog and had lived with us for years we'd be dishing out thousands to save her, but she wasn't and we did the best we could with what we had. Inevitably, the risk of performing surgery on such a small animal who would probably suffer and die sooner than later made our case. But now we're faced with the consequence of telling the Meatball, the painful truth.

Growing up I had one dog. His name was Prince. We had him ever since I could remember and he moved with us everywhere: the Philippines, North Dakota, California. Prince lived a long life, about a good 15 years, to the point where he was suffering from blindness as he would run into hallway walls at my parents home. One summer, while I returned home from college, I noticed Prince wasn't there to greet me. I asked Rambo where Prince was and he told me nonchalantly, "Oh we put him to sleep about four months ago. He was already old you know."  I was devastated. My closet childhood friend gone without my knowledge for four months! But that's how my parents treated pets. Of course, they love all their pets, treated them well, kept them fed and taken care of but there wasn't that apparent attachment nor affection as one would see in the States. I knew my parents cared for their pets deeply, since they would never leave them for long periods of time, but they were also realistic about growing old and death. I will never know.

Now as a parent, I'm faced with telling my child about the death of her pet. Pretty Pants and I have danced around how to tell her for three whole days and decided that over the weekend would be the best bet. I know that Tina's death doesn't carry as much weight to us as an actual person would have been, but  to the Meatball it may be one in the same. We're still not sure how to approach it, realistically like my father had done? Come with a plan B/distraction? Tell her the truth? Or twist the truth a little bit as to not hurt her or have her blame us?  We're just going to have to wing this one and find out.

Rest in peace, Tina.

How have you approached pet deaths in your household?

Sibling Un-rivalry

I have always had an issue with the Meatball and Spaghetti being 6 years apart. Not that I had planned their ages intentionally, but I guess in the grand scheme of things I would've liked to have seen a smaller age gap. I assumed that a smaller age gap would bring them closer together naturally or that they would just have more in common and relate as friends not just siblings. I was afraid that because of their difference in age they wouldn't be as bonded. But what did I know? I'm an only child. And now realize I didn't have a thing to worry about.

Ever since I was pregnant with Spaghetti though, I've almost always have gotten annoyed with family members (the Colonel and Rambo included) telling the Meatball how now that she was going to be a big sister, she had to help me out as much as she could. "Okay, Meatball, be sure to help your Mommy around the house now." "Meatball you have to help take care of your little sister for your mommy now."  I would cringe every time someone would say something to that effect. I wasn't looking at our newest addition to turn the Meatball into Mommy's Little Helper or Mommy 2.0! I was worried that all this Meatball helping me around the house and with her sister would make her grow up too fast. All this advise motivated me to preserve Meatball's childhood as much as I could, especially when Spaghetti was born.

For the nine months of Spaghetti's life, I never asked the Meatball for help. I pretty much let her do her own thing (color, play legos, watch The Electric Company) and made sure that she knew she didn't need to help. For a while there I thought what I was doing worked well, however, I started to notice a couple things that I didn't expect. First, the Meatball wasn't connecting with her sister. She didn't know how to play with an infant and well there's not much playing going on with an infant. Secondly, the Meatball was starting to do more and more things by herself which seemed pretty isolating. Third, Pretty Pants and I were exhausted.

So I finally asked for help. I needed to take a shower and had asked the Meatball if she could just watch her sister. To my surprise the Meatball was very happy to take on this responsibility. It was almost like she took on this secondary maternal role towards her sister, which in reality, was her falling into the role of big sister! All my fears of her feeling too much obligation, too much responsibility once she had a sibling had diminished as I observed their sibling bond grow through the Meatball taking care of her sister. I guess that's what siblings are supposed to do. And maybe since I didn't have an example to reflect on, I couldn't understand the concept. Today, they are inseparable (at least for now); sleeping, eating, bathing, and playing together. Spaghetti adores the ground Meatball walks on, mimicking her every word and move. In turn, the Meatball adores her little sister, teaching and guiding her just as older sisters should. Do I still cringe at big sister, big obligation remarks? Yes, but in our house, it simply doesn't happen that way. These two have each others' backs, no obligation necessary.

The Family Meeting

For the most part, the Meatball, a second grader gets excellent grades. So when she got a B- in Reading Comprehension, Pretty Pants and I were concerned. As a way to monitor her progress, we decided to hold what we called family meetings every Friday night after dinner. We used this time to review and discuss the Meatball's graded work from the week. With each of us sitting at the dining room table, (Little Spaghetti had to be preoccupied w/Yo Gabba Gabba during these times) the Meatball would introduce each paper, explain what was required of her and announce what grade she got. My husband and I would then take turns asking her questions or giving her comments about her work. Family meetings turned out to be very effective for us and a great tool for opening up dialogue. It was an opportunity for Meatball to have all our attention and a platform to learn how to present and communicate. The first few meetings we would get a lot of "I don't knows" or "I forgots" from the Meatball when she would present her work to us but after a couple rounds, she began to feel more comfortable expressing and communicating to us what she did learn and/or what she was struggling with.

Family meetings lasted for a good two months. (Consistency is so tough!) The Meatball's grades improved. We got busy and family meetings fell to the wayside. Until the Meatball brought up, "Why don't we have family meetings anymore?" Not wanting to give her the "we got busy" excuse, I replied, "Well, why don't you remind us?"
The next day on the refrigerator, I saw this:

I was so proud that the Meatball took the initiative and organized her own meeting! On Friday, she had all her homework prepared and ready to be presented. As she led her meeting, I found myself realizing how well we worked as a unit, a team, which just adds so much more to the concept of family. Just because Mommy and Dad aren't leading it doesn't mean that children cannot step up and take ownership over certain tasks or events to be seen and heard. Way to go Meatball!

sleeping like queens

My two year old, Spaghetti, is not what I would call a good sleeper. Compared to her sister, Meatball, who has slept like an angel (on time and through the night) since birth, getting Spaghetti to sleep (and stay asleep has always been challenging. So when it was time for Spaghetti to make the transition to a toddler bed a couple months ago, she wouldn't have it.

My husband, Pretty Pants and I had the normal bedtime routine down: bath, story, prayer, song and a soothing sound machine. Even with all our efforts, she would still creep out of bed and try to sneak herself into her play things in the living room as if we wouldn't notice her. Since we were always in the living room after we put her to bed, we tried a different tactic and went to our bedroom instead in the hopes that Spaghetti would think everyone was sleeping too. This plan had a different success than we had expected. After a few hours of hiding out in our bedroom, my husband and I checked Spaghetti's room only to find she wasn't there! Instead, we found our girls, squished together on Meatball's twin sized bed sound asleep. All of a sudden, Spaghetti made a new bedtime routine: bath, story, prayer, song, soothing sound machine, sneak into my sister's bed.

After a few weeks of "sneaking around" my husband and I decided, why not just have them share a bed? It took us some time to deliberate over this matter. We considered their age gap (Meatball, 8; Spaghetti, 2) Would this be appropriate? Would they disrupt each other's sleep? I even asked my mother, the Colonel, only to get the 7-of-us-had-to-sleep-in-one-room-in-the-Philippines story on repeat. Then we asked Meatball if she thought it was okay and we knew she had mixed emotions about it: for one, she didn't know if she wanted to sleep with her sister but then again it was better than sleeping by herself, so she agreed. We couldn't afford to buy another bed but we did have a daybed with a trundle that the Colonel had given us for our spare bedroom. Luckily for us, we were able to convert the two twins we had to a king sized bed.

For a good two months, the transition worked out perfectly. For the girls, it was like a mini-slumber party every night before they went to bed. For my husband and I we were able to get an hour of our relaxation time back. We decided to check in with Meatball every six months or so to see if she was still okay with the sleeping arrangements. But at the same time, enforcing our parental authority that this is what they had to do. Lola, their grandmother, had to do it in the Philippines growing up, so why can't they? After two blissful months of more rest for everyone, Spaghetti went back to taking about an hour to settle down and sleep. Sometimes she still wakes up in the middle of the night, in which case either Pretty Pants or I or both of us can now lie down next to her and her snoring sister on their big king bed where we can all sleep like royalty.

Momma Mina Loves The Electric Company

"Heeyyy you guuuyyysss!!!"

It's about time! Being a veteran mother serving about 8 years now I've had my fair share of Dora the Explorer, Blue's Clues, Oswald and Caillou. Granted, all are decent shows but of course they are children's shows and after three episodes of any of the above on repeat just about makes me want to bang my head against the wall, like a good friend of mine once said, until I can't feel feelings (Note: Barney only takes 1 but more on that in another post). Most television shows have a very short shelf life so I like to sprinkle in a little of the classics as well like Sesame Street. So you can imagine my excitement when I heard that PBS was reviving The Electric Company!!

In its second season, The Electric Company is geared for older children (5-10 years). With a multicultural cast, a slew of celebrity appearances (see below), and a hip, urban vibe, The Electric Company packs music, dance, arts, grammar and reading into 25 minutes of pure enjoyment. The Meatball enjoys rapping about homonyms and synonyms and I get to bob my head and be a wannabe cool mom to LL Cool J all at the same time! What!?! 


LL Cool J raps



NeYo croons


Lin Manuel Miranda (of In The Heights fame) breaks it down


G'head now, plug it in!

the Meatball and the Grammys

As we were gearing up to start another week, the Meatball ran into our room this morning with one excited question, "Did Taylor Swift win after I went to bed???" Referring to her short lived viewing of the Grammys, the Meatball, her sister and I were one of the 25.8 million Americans that watched the Grammys last night. CBS had been advertising the annual awards event to tune in to see which female singer would take the most coveted prize in music, Album of the Year. With two little girls at home, I'm all about supporting female empowerment and watching dreams come true. So under my supervision, we watched the first hour of the Grammys (woo hoo bedtime was postponed for a whole hour!)

As we watched I fielded questions about Lady Gaga, interjected little lessons during performances and speech acceptances about how each of these artists had to work very hard for a very long time to get their award or nomination (Beyonce's story is a great example), and offered random words of encouragement anytime I saw the Meatball's eyes light up with excitement or start dancing around to a song she knew. (Subliminal message: You can do this too!)

Growing up, the Colonel and Rambo weren't so supportive of occupations that they deemed unstable. So even if I had created a whole stage show with programs, performing tunes from ABBA (sung and choreographed by moi) at the end of the show they would still remind me that although it was fun and nice, I needed to focus on my education. Now as a mother, I can see their perspective and how in this economy and society, financial and career stability has taken the forefront and seemingly only a select few succeed when following their dreams. I can now understand their worry of the risks and struggles one has to take in order to follow their dream. I only wished they communicated it a little better. Now as a parent, I try to support any glimpse of a dream I see unfolding, asking questions, creating dialogue, finding positive role models to encourage my girls to dive into things they are passionate about... of course after they've done their homework.  But Taylor Swift, a young girl herself, couldn't have said it better when she accepted the award for Album of the Year, "thank you Dad for all those times you said I could do whatever I wanted in life" and really that's what it's all about. As parents, there's only so much we can do to help, support, guide, counsel our children while we have them, the rest we just have to trust we did or are doing the best we can.

eight

Behold the Meatball spinning....



This one is going down in the books as quite possibly one of my most favorite memories. We had just gotten out of the Broadway show, Mary Poppins, and my 8 year old, the Meatball starts dancing like one of the chimney sweeps. I was just able to capture the end result: spinning without a care in the world and why should she? She’s 8. Vivid memories of my childhood started at 8 and were filled with the tiniest little details: a purple coat with purple snow boots I wore to school, the black thin head band, my teacher, Ms. Hoekstra wore in her shoulder length blonde hair and opening up that can of Campbell’s ABC’s Vegetable soup every day for snack after school.
 

When I asked my own mother, the Colonel, if she remembered anything about being 8, she recounts tending to her parents store, helping her mother, Lola, with her six younger siblings and studying hard. I responded, ” Hmm, that doesn’t sound too fun, Colonel.” In her thick Filipino accent, she responds, “Well, dear, it was fun.” Period. Oddly enough, I believed her. While I was growing up the Colonel wasn’t really about fun or about playing with me but she did create the spaces for me to have my own fun. By the time I was in junior high, we had visited most national landmarks across the country, I had taken piano and swimming lessons and belonged to Brownies and AYSO. Now if I could only remember if the Colonel was there to have fun right along with me.

Which leads me to wonder what details the Meatball will remember of being 8? Will I be in them? More importantly, how am I contributing to help her create fun-filled memories? There are so many influences in the media and society enticing children to grow up faster and yet I’m happy to announce that at this time my meatball just wants to be 8. My job? To make sure that it stays that way.