Clarifying which things are dead

During lunch today I talked to the girls about the mice again. Hazel had been looking at a book with mice in it, and kept returning to the mouse pictures, and saying Mouse Mouse Mouse.

Then she started with the Mouse Mouse Mouse during lunch, so I said "The mice are dead because the cats ate them. We won't see the mice any more. They are gone and they can't come back."

That seemed to go down OK, then Ivy said "Bats. Gone."

Now that was interesting, because we've been talking a lot about bats. The bats that sleep by the Yarra used to fly over our garden every evening, and we'd all troop out there in our PJs to watch them fly, just before we put the girls to bed. The bats have not been around lately, though - perhaps they have eaten everything in Preston and are now pillaging other suburbs. They are supposed to migrate north during winter, but I am pretty sure that they no longer do this.

Every evening we talk about the bats, and their absence. We go out and look, if it's not raining. No bats.

Ivy mentioned the bats because they also have gone, and perhaps they can't come back, and maybe we will never see them again.

So I found myself trying to explain the differences between death and prolonged absence to a pair of 19-month-old girls who were eating lunch. Having toddlers is constantly and gently blowing my mind.