Dilemma - death and dying. - kinda long

Ok, so in a round about way it's kinda about death and dying.. argh i dunno, but i need some advice.

Here's the deal.

A year ago, our cat we had from 3 years before i had paris, got hurt and we couldn't afford the operation it would take to fix him back up so had to put him down. Paris was so upset at the time, even though really she had stopped playing with him,they used to be bestest buddies when she was a bubba and he followed her around the house when she wasn't pulling his tail, but she did get to say goodbye to him before we left him to be put down, and helped us bury him in the backyard later on once mike had gone back and picked him up, and she sung him a song ( i think it was twinkle twinkle) and put some flowers on the top etc. She seemed to get over it fairly quickly though.

5 months ago after Paris constantly being on at me about wanting another brother or sister, i get preggers, of course we tell her, why would we not, i had never had anything go wrong with a pregnancy, she even came to our first scan, .. where we were told baby had no heartbeat, again, up comes discussion about death and dying, only this time she was absolutely devastated, whether this was because she also probably had to deal with seeing me dealing with it i am not sure. We have not yet done anything special for this, I think i plan to in November when it would have been due, but mayvbe this has had an effect on her as there hasn't been the closure for her like last time...

anyway, since then she has not been her sparky self, she is back to wetting pants alot.. some days she will have dry days but others she will wet 3 times, sometimes she even doesn't change them at daycare, she will get home and we go to get her changed for bed or whatever to find wet underpants, not fully wet outer pants obviously otherwise we'd pick it up a heck of alot sooner. We try not to make a big thing of it, just stress to her she needs to change them if she wets so she doesn't get sore or smell yucky, and to try a bit harder to get there instead of trying to finish her game etc..

She gets upset so easy, at first i thought maybe it was an excuse, but alot of the time it will be completely out of the blue she'll start crying and when asked what's wrong, it is always "I miss joey" our cat, or "i miss baby, when can you have a baby". Generally she tends to have sore tummies an awful lot..which i have read somewhere can be a child's way of manifesting depressed feelings etc.

anyways.. I am trying to help her deal with this as i do worry she has a bit of unresolved grief issues etc,

Dilemma time....

Today i came home to find that one of our bunnies had died... I have no idea why, we only got them last year and they were newbies when we got em. They look alike so we don't know if it was Ayja's smudge or Paris's Sarah that passed. They are out in the backyard in their cage around the back of the house so the girls haven't really been out to see them lately with the icky weather, mike feeds em and cleans em and gives em a pat but mostly at the mo it's too cold to do much.

Because it was just me and mike, we hadn't picked up the girls from daycare yet.. We decided between ourselves that Paris could not cope with any more death in such a short amount of time. We have not told her. We have gotten rid of the dead bunny. I do feel bad, but also want to protect her from any more pain, and probably protect ousrselves from dealing with the pain of her pain.. if you know what i mean

We don't know what to do now... we are planning to tell her it got out and ran away, we are just waiting to figure out what we are doing with the other bunny. I do not want it to be lonely, My older sister has rabbits and has said she will gladly take the other away to her place to look after it, as really we can't spend the time on it that it deserves. We aren't sure how Paris will take this.

Do we get my sister to pick up bunny without Paris knowing and then tell her that they both ran away, or, do we talk to her about not wanting bunny to be lonely and let her say bye bye to the bunny which we will probably say is her one, so that when we go to my older sister's house she can still see that bunny is happy and she can go and see it when she likes.

I am really unsure what the heck to say to her. This is not what i signed up for when i became a parent.

mmm i do feel bad about lying to her, but i do not, AT ALL, think that she can live with the idea of another thing dying, seriously, so we are planning to tell her that the one that died.. ran away as that way there is no blame, just some silly thing that happened, and for her i know that she would accept that bunny would have gotten out and gone off to explore and maybe found another nice home to live at..

I just can't decide whether to tell her the other one has run away as well at the same time when we do tell her(as mentioned.. we haven't told her about the dead one and she's none the wiser cos she can't see their cage from inside the house to notice there's only 1 in there) or whether we let her say goodbye to the other bunny when it goes to my sister's house.

Mike is now undecided as to whether he wants to get rid of the other one, but really with all the other stuff and business in our lives, we can't look after her as well as we should and as well as such a lovely bunny deserves, and a replacement is out of the question, i know my big sister absolutely pampers her bunnies and that ours would be well looked after.

I know i can't protect Paris from death for the rest of her life but i don't feel at this time considering all that has gone on, that she needs to deal with something else like this again so soon,

I'm also quite careful about not using the "got sick and died" thing because i am worried she may get a few interesting fears about getting sick and thinking that she too will die which can be common at this age for them to think, i was silly enough to use that when we had our first scan, telling her that baby was sick and that if baby was still sick when we went back for our second scan then they would have to take baby out so it wouldn't make me sick, i am not sure that was the best way to have put it at the time, so have learnt not to use that one anymore.

Edited by mum2paris

Ok, so this is probably terrible advice and don't take any notice of it, but what about a replacement bunny that looks just like the one that died?

Ok, that was a terrible idea I know.

Sorry.

I hope Paris feels better soon.

I agree with nuttymumma, get creative. She seems like such a sensitive wee soul and another death to deal with, well that is just too much for her. I like you suggestion of telling her it ran away. Perhaps dont send the other one to your sisters immediately as this may be detrimental. Perhaps after a couple of weeks of gently suggesting that the bunny needs to go to your sisters that you do it. And the idea of it needing a Bunny Friend is good.

On the sore tummy and wetting pants front, maybe she needs to talk to someone to get her grief out and worked through.....

Both of you are such caring parents who obviously love your girls to bits.

Your story made me cry

Ugh Janine, thats a tricky one for you We've been lucky that Maya hasn't really had to understand death, she was too young to understand when I lost the baby, and we don't have pets coz *I* don't cope with them dying (yes I am a big sook ).
She does have a concept of death tho, we believe in heaven, so I've taught her that when people die they go to heaven, and every night when she goes to bed she says prayers for Uncle Jim, Aunty Marion, baby Kalen and Uncle Lightie (my sisters cat lol) up in heaven. She doesn't question it, altho she knows we can't get to heaven coz I've told her if she loses Fussy then Fussy will go to heaven and we won't see her anymore.
Ok, so I'm not much help. If it was me, I'd tell Paris the bunny ran away, and then keep the other one for a little while then do the "bunny is lonely so how would you feel about bunny going to Aunty's house?" That way if she violently objects you can consider buying a new bunny to keep the other one company, but if she agrees, it will give her a sense of having made the decision herself which is a good thing.
Good luck!

Well done, I'm glad she'll have a bit of time to process before the other one leaves as well.

Emma - I don't have pets because with three preschoolers I'm scared I'd forget to feed them Consequently if we ever get pets they will be big/mobile/loud enough to tell me when they are hungry (think puppy vs goldfish) LOL

EDITED - as assistance clearly wasnt wanted from me here!

Edited by Bombshell

Janine, sounds like Paris is having a rough time. I guess everyone deals with things their own way, you know your little girl best and I think you did the best thing. I hope she is ok.

just a side note BS but i thought you were into law...? you sound in your post to have a lot to do with children

and i must say janine it didnt sound like you were trying to play amateur psych with her to me.

Yep Annie, she is (BS).