Bittersweet

It is my birthday tomorrow, but this is not the reason for the slightly melancholy title!

Friday night our budgie died. For those of you who regularly read my waffle, you may remember earlier posts I have done about how the pets are not mine. They belong to the girls (and in the budgie's case, the ex, but that is a whole other story). But I am sad. Actually very sad. Sad for the girls who are truly devastated. Sad for their dad who was away at work and the girls were crying so much it took them an hour to be able to talk to him. Sad for me, because I am really going to miss his chattering. I already do. Grief and mourning for the loss of a loved one is an important part of life and I think losing a pet is an important part of growing and learning, but it does not make it a fun lesson. It also scares me about life events that this lesson might be preparing us for.

Saturday night was a celebration for my birthday. This was the fun part of the weekend! I insist on calling it a gathering. I am always too scared to call it a party in case no-one shows up or if people do and it is boring it will make it a bad party. I just feel that calling it a gathering puts a lot less pressure on me! (Paranoid much?!). And just in case you are concerned, people did show up and I had a fabulous night. I feel very loved and very looked after.

I do have a funny Aimee story to share from the weekend to end on a happy note. I had a Board meeting Saturday morning so one of my friends came to babysit. The girls decided to decorate the house while I was out and just as I was leaving Aimee asked could she decorate the balloons. This bit was no problem. However, she was entirely disgruntled with me because my birthday was not for another few days. Apparently this meant she couldn't write "32" or "32nd Birthday" instead she decorated the balloons with the words "32 on Tuesday". Accurate I suppose!

So this is officially my last post at aged 31. Next time I write I will be older and I am keeping my fingers crossed for wiser. Please note, just my fingers crossed, not holding my breath. I am not that optimistic!

Grandma duties

I would like to begin by saying that I do not have any pets. I do not need any pets. I have three children and an ex-husband. I am pretty sure this is enough for any person. I am not against the idea in principal. I think they are great for kids and I think I would like one, one day when my nest is empty.

The girls however have a rabbit (Misty) and goldfish (assorted names). My ex has a budgie (Boris) who lives with me (short version of a long story, we used to babysit the budgie when the ex went away and one day he just moved in. The bird, not the ex. There was slightly more discussion before we moved in together).

I am very fond of the pets overall. It is nice coming home and finding Boris there being very excited to see us. Misty is very cute and I have always wanted goldfish. But they are not my responsibility. The girls do a great job of looking after them and I think I have posted before about them leaving notes for me to remind me what to do when they go away. This is fine! Grandma duties :)

We went away for a few days. I arranged for a friend to come and feed and water them and to play with the rabbit and talk to the bird. I even left him in front of the TV so he didn't get lonely. He didn't talk to us for about three days when we got home. Seriously. When we spoke to him he put his head under his wing (and I have never seen him do that before!) or would turn his back. For three days we all, me included, attempted to get him to speak to us. He did. Eventually. But not before I felt bad! Isn't mother-guilt bad enough? Now I have pet-Grandma guilt!

But wait ... there is more! Our rabbit may or may not be pregnant. Sadly through the girls being responsible pet owners and taking her for a play in the backyard. Unfortunately the next door neighbours rabbit was there too. My colleagues thought it was hysterically funny listening to me trying to work out what was going on when Erin called me at work (my little sister was babysitting by the way).

And in amongst all this, my ex is talking about buying a dog ....to keep at our house. Hmmm ... my theory here is he can foot all the bills! But I have been broken into several times in the last couple of years so I am not actually totally against this. However I take pet owning seriously and this is a big call.

His latest plan is thinks the girls might like chooks. The might. But all I am saying is "I don't think so!!"