Toddlers and Pets…What a Combination!
By June in 
My husband and I have enjoyed 9 and a half years of marriage, we kind of had a plan : marry, wait 2 years , buy a house, have some kids (in our case three) and live happily ever after…well of course we soon learned that marriage takes work, a house takes more work and children change your whole work ethic! What we hadn’t put into the equation was: pets. Both my husband and I grew up with animals in our home so we had a fondness for them and knew it was a matter of time before we looked into owning pets. With the month of June being our 6 and 4 year old’s birthdays, we decided to take the mammoth step of plunging into the pet pool.
The children have been requesting a pet for some time now and my husband and I kept feeling it was too soon as we enjoy the freedom of not having to make arrangements for pets on our spur of the moment camping trips- but it was time.
We surprised the children this week with a puppy and a kitten. We are on day 3 now and it has been a very interesting experience. Firstly it is wonderful to watch the children fall so deeply in love with the animals and desire for them to be with them all the time (sounds like how I feel about the kids…most of the time) but then there has been the huge task of teaching them the rules of pets. This, I am learning is a wonderful opportunity to teach them some precious life lessons like; when you commit to love someone or something you just do what it takes to make it work; that you see things through and that love isn’t always about holding…or smothering, that you have to let them find their way, but stand just close enough to make sure they are ok.
My patience has been tested a good few times as my 2 year old has done things such as emptying the dustbin and placing the kitty and pup in it as he felt it a much more suitable home…or like today when I walked into the bathroom just in time before he was about to turn the tap on to: “give puppy a baff”.
I am not sure when the perfect time is to introduce pets to children, all I can say is that when my 8 month old nephew, who was born into a family of a mom, dad and dog, met our pets, he immediately responded with outstretched arms and familiar gestures. For now, our family feels a bit more complete with these cuties around and now hopefully we can keep working on that happily ever after part…