Yesterday Ryan got on a tangent about having a pet. This came on the heels of his “first pet,” a
grasshopper, dying. The only reason he
had that was it was crawling across my laptop while I was working. I nearly screamed but then caught it in a
plastic container so he could see it. He
wanted to keep it, but we didn’t feed it.
I know, I know. I should have fed
the grasshopper.
Several days
before he had asked, “Mom, if you HAD to have a pet, what would you want?” I told him if I HAD to have one, I would
probably want a small dog. He turned
that into mom wants a small dog. However,
we have had these discussions before.
You see, I don’t want a pet.
We’ve tried having pets.
I had fish in
college. They were harmless, except when
you had to clean the bowl. I didn’t like
that.
Then Kevin and I
decided to adopt a cat when we moved to our first pastorate. We had decided to put off having kids for a
little while, so we adopted Rev. Ike to move into the parsonage with us. (Yes, that was his name at the shelter.) Not long after we adopted him, I got
pregnant. When Brandon came along, I
didn’t want the cat anywhere near the baby.
I didn’t care if they were old wives tales, I wasn’t taking any
chances. I had to chase that cat
everywhere trying to get it into the laundry room where it had food and toys
and such. But we decided that was no
life for a cat, so we gave it to one of Kevin’s cousins.
During our second
pastorate, a vet attended our church and said he had a dog I should come
see. He said if he couldn’t find a home,
it would have to take a walk over the rainbow bridge. I looked, and I fell in love. There were actually two, a brother and a
sister. That day they came home with
us. We named the girl Happy. She was very happy to come home with me. (She
even put her head on my shoulder as I drove her home.) We named the boy Lucky because he was just
lucky I took two dogs. Then it
began. Not only did they sleep all day
and bark all night, but they started digging holes. Now even I know that dogs dig. But these dogs were DIGGING! I mentioned it to the vet, and he just said
that’s what dogs do. Then he came by the
house. Even he was surprised at the size
of the holes in our backyard. I told
those silly dogs they were digging their own graves because they were deep
enough for me to push them in and cover them up. So the dogs had to go.
We did fish again
for a little while. I don’t think any of
us were overly crazy about them, though.
Now we fast
forward to several years later. Ryan
wants a pet. And he wants one now! In fact, we had to finally tell him to not
mention the word pet or animal again yesterday.
He was over the top!
So what do we
do? Neither Kevin nor I really want an
inside pet. Our yard isn’t huge, but we
do have a small garden, so we don’t want something that’s going to dig it up. Does every kid NEED a pet? Are we denying him something that will send
him to therapy in future years? Or is
this just another tangent of a seven-year-old?
What do you
think?
P.S. Before you
start making suggestions about exotic things or birds or gerbils, the answer is
no. J
