It’s terrible here. Fran is beside herself, Max has just taken her up to try and cuddle off to sleep. I warned her when Max went out that i had a feeling Peter was going to die but when Max phoned and she saw my face, she just went mad. She didn’t even cry, she just started screaming and lashing out. Its hellishly difficult explaining to child who has had general anesthetics and will have to have more about putting animals to sleep too. I know a dead rabbit is a mere nothing compared to tsunamis, i know we give our children pets partly to help them to deal with grief, but tbh when your child is so sad and there is nothing you can do to appease it, its horrible. I can’t even say i’ll get her another; not only will that not make up for Peter, not only was Peter a really lovely rabbit but we’ll have to be rabbitless for a long time to make sure we don’t just infect a new one. He was in the house for days, so we won’t know for days if Button is dying either and that means even the house wouldn’t be safe for a new rabbit. Not that i’d want to replace him. Peter was more Max’s rabbit than anything, despite having been got for Fran’s 4th birthday, i feel so sad for him too.
The only bright spot is that if he got it at the vets, by being bitten by a flea, there is just a chance Button won’t get it. Apparently its spread by parasites and fleas and is rarely spread by actual rabbit to rabbit contact. So there is a chance. Its completely horrible knowing we won’t know for days. Even worse to read now that it can be recovered from, so did they put him down without giving him a chance? It was the first time we had used that vets as well. ARGH :~( I’m not sure the educational value of the subsequent discussion on why the disease was created was really worth the experience :~(
We’d had such a nice day. Fran and Maddy both did lovely writing with me; Fran was very tired but Maddy did fabulously, i was so impressed with how prepared she was to try something. For the first time in months i feel like she and i are back on a wavelength that makes sense. The sticker chart has worked, we’ve had almost no wet knickers all week. And her maths was good too, just a reception level book but she skimmed through it, i read the question, she did the answer with no explanation required. Fran started the year one books, easy sums, slightly harder wording, but she pretty much read them for herself. I’m hoping if we get through the year one and two books about a section a day we’ll have done them in about a month and hopefully that will have given her the reading skills to do the next level of stuff on her own and be a bit more stretched. She really likes problem solving, but the words are still a hurdle and she does seem to need a fair bit of consolidation. having looked at the Exeter maths i’d say her understanding is well into year 3 level anyway and since she enjoys written maths, i’d like her to be able to do it for pleasure. (Still a weird concept but still!)
After that, while Ammi played yet more lego, Fran and Maddy did sticker books from Usborne (its my new year resolution to actually use the resources i buy!) Fran did the dinosaur one, all on her own and sat at it for a couple of hours, Maddy sat with me and did Europe and Africa from the Animal one. They are lovely books, we are going to read them tomorrow properly. Must also do some work on the Ethelred kings too.
Oh hell, *I* can’t do one of the problems on the Yr 3 paper…
I’m going to dissolve into my wine now. Poor Peter.
Oh damn… apparently cambs has seen a particularlyvirulent version of this that affects vaccinated rabbits and IS spread rabbit to rabbit. bag goes that hope then.
