School and cats and changes
Well, a great deal has been going on. Here's a recap.
Zoë started in an integration programme at one of the smaller primary schools near her specialty school. She has two other children from her group with her (both boys), and two teachers, so it's a very good student to teacher ratio! The kids are under constant supervision (even on the playground). Zoë seems to be really enjoying the new school, which has free range chickens and a science room with reptiles and a human skeleton, among other things. She's also still participating in the "Girl's Friendship Group" run by the speech therapist (she goes back to her specialty school for that) and she's having swimming lessons every other week still, except now it's with the two boys in her integration group and the teachers, rather than with her other, bigger group. (Hope that made sense...)
In other news, we've moved house. Zoë says she likes "our new home". She was somewhat unsettled at first, as were we all, but she seems to have gotten most of it sorted out now. The good thing is that her bus comes later in the morning and it comes home earlier in the afternoon. This is good for her, but for me it makes the schedule a bit tight in the afternoon, as I now have to drive Miranda to school and I have to be very quick to get home in time to meet the bus!
In more sad news, Zoë's grandparents' cat died over the weekend. It was quite an elderly cat, and she was quite unwell and in a lot of pain, but it was still sad, as it always is, to lose a beloved pet. Zoë was quite deeply affected, though we didn't know just how deeply at first.
When we told her that Miffy had died, Zoë was very sad and immediately went to find our cat and pet her and make sure she had food and water and was well. We assured Zoë that Missycat is fine and healthy and will probably be around for some years to come. We also had a talk (as we always do when the subject arises) about how everything living eventually dies, and that this is part of the natural cycle of life.
On the weekend, we went over to the grandparents' house and Zoë was there for a while and then suddenly it hit her that there was no Miffy there. She started to look for her, almost frantically. Then she started to cry and was saying, "But there is no Miffy here! What have you done with Miffy? I want to pet her!"
Nanna gave Zoë a big cuddle and told her it was okay to be sad and to cry, and encouraged her to talk about happy memories of Miffy. Miranda joined in the conversation, and we were all talking about Miffy and what a nice cat she was and how we would miss her, but that she had a long, happy life.
We were somewhat surprised that Zoë took it as hard as she did, but she seems to have weathered the upset, as well as the move.
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