Death discussions continue to occur around our household since we told the girls about our beloved “senior” kitty Rory going up to heaven. It happened immediately after the girls’ birthday party a couple weeks ago and during our Monday Seward day holiday. He was likely deteriorating for a few days prior to us noticing, since the birthday hubbub kept us all pretty busy over that weekend.

The random questions crack me up when I focus on how they are funny and not sad. For example:

• How does Rory get to heaven?
• What happened to his head?
• We need to bring a hair drier outside and melt the snow so we can put him in the ground.
• Why did he have to go to heaven?
• What happens to his bones?
• How does he float up to heaven?
• When you get old do you die? Does that mean you and dad are going to die soon…because you are old? Dad is older than you, does he die first?!
• If you die when you get old, does that mean I die when I get old?

This month everyone is on a tangent about being old and death but haven’t spiraled too bad from it yet, and the girls randomly got stuck on Rory losing his head during his end. To be clear, there was no head loss with our kitty, more so kidney failure and euthanizing, which we did not explain in detail and did not bring the girls to witness. Their head loss questions probably relate to Mr. Rooster losing his after sassing Grandma Sue a while back, and it’s hilarious they still remember that after almost two years.

Their comprehension of the entire topic overall is impressive. They casually bring up the kitten in conversation and that they miss him, and want to participate in the back yard funeral once the ground is thawed, like we did for Rafi.

After a little time we opted to shop around the municipal pound for another young cat to pair up with the now solo Winston. The girls did pretty well looking at the animals and demanded a bunny who was cutely hanging out in a hallway cage (no we are not getting a bunny!). We settled on a shy, part Siamese kitty, who instantly attached to Reagan both at the pound and after we returned home. Winston is not as impressed, but I believe he will come around. After a bit of time they are at least not hissing at one another!

As the new baby gets used to her new home- who is named Rosie in an unusually unanimous decision by the girls- she is almost over the cold she gave Winston and settling well into our family life. Even better, she’s filling the gap of us missing Rory and continues to snuggle all night in bed with the grownups while Winston tends to stay with the sleeping girls. A bit of an adjustment but everything appears to be working out!

In happier and unrelated news, the girls attended their first Broadway show as part of a class field trip this week, seeing Aladdin! It is reasonable to say the parents were probably more excited than the kids for this event, but overall I believe everyone enjoyed it. The music and characters were great, as well as the storyline modified to fit a live show; what really wowed me was the intricate costumes and the set changes, which were SO amazing. All three wore variations of Jasmine dresses and ooohed over the sparkly outfits and songs they recognized from the movie. I didn’t go to a Broadway show until this year; pretty great they are starting early at age six!

All three sat through it pretty well, with a demand for a snack at intermission; but overall there was minimal fidgeting or disruption and no potty breaks in the middle of it. I’m already receiving requests to listen to the new songs that don’t reside in the movies. It’s exciting to know they are now old enough to cooperate for longer, more grown up shows and we aren’t always a public spectacle (other than for the cuteness part!). Everyone left the show with a gold lamp necklace, not the full sized, solid gold lamp they wanted, and I’m ready for the next show to come. Exciting times!