Doulas, Death to a 3.75 Ben, and Decisions

Fun time at the baby shower last night and I can't wait to see the pics from LauraC. Big thanks to her for keeping the mini-taco party real with a cake that only I would find funny. Bill said thanks for not making him take the boob part to work today as leftovers if that gives you any ideas. More to come as we did the big gender reveal at the party only after I ruined my own intentional plan. Have a plan for the blog to, coming later this week, so no comments giving it away!

ok... many events since Friday posting. I'll start in order:

Explaining Death to a Preschooler- I don't recommend it. When I picked up Ben on a gloriously sunny NC day Ben wanted to stop and point out the gerbil cage that was sitting empty outside his classroom. "Mommy, the gerbil died and went to heaven" What??? As I look for somewhere to sit down and talk to him fearing where this was going. Ben goes on to tell me that the class gerbil had died and if he had wings he would go visit it in heaven.

The next thing out of his mouth shocked me, "I think the gerbil is with my cats." As he had told Bill earlier in the week that he wanted daddy to help find his cats, they were lost and he hadn't seen them. We knew we needed to say something and had planed some type of discussion soon. Hell, this is not what I imagined, but seeing that it was on his brain I asked him to come sit with me and quit filling his pockets with rocks for a minute. I asked him why he thought his cats were in heaven and he said,"I can't find them, I think they died."

So I became the adult in the room and and said yes they were very, very old just like his gerbil and had gone to live in heaven. I didn't want to use the word sick thinking this would come back to haunt me. I asked him if he was sad about the gerbils and the cats and he said yes, but they were going to come back so he could visit them. Before I could say no, he asked if he could have a kitten. I am thinking that the teachers have told them they will get a new gerbil. Needless to say I need to talk to his teacher today when I get to school. I gave him a big hug, told him I bet all the animals were playing in heaven and having a good time and we went home, took our dog out and tried to focus on playing at the playground.

I didn't hear anything else until we were at the playground again yesterday and he told me he was going to die in 2 weeks. WHAT???? "No honey, you are not going to die anytime soon. You will be much older when you die, older than than mommy and daddy." We will have lots of time to play everyday before you die." I found out later he said the same to Bill at bedtime so it is obviously on his mind and since he has no sense of time he knows that death is at some point going to happen to him. Last night he slept with his overhead light on at his request as he was scared. Bill and I agree that it is wrong to let him believe that he will never die but instead try to help him in whatever realm his 3.75 mind is in to process what dead means.

So my million dollar question is where to we go from here and what could I have done differently? Looking for help if you have had this talk before.

Doulas- Met with Sam on Sat and it was a good experience. Actually this post is already longer than I had time to write so I will save it for another day. Same goes for baby decisions.

Either way I am now 15 teaching days until maternity leave (still no sub), another crazy busy week in an attempt to tie up loose ends, trying to get ready for the arrival including locating baby gear lent out, replacing lost/nonreturned items, trying to stay well and off very swollen feet as I can.