Learner Dad: 'The five-year-old can’t wait for our cat to die'

'We’re far more comfortable talking to our kids about death than we are about sex'

The five-year-old can’t wait for our cat Skippy to die. He told me the other day, the minute Skippy croaks, he’s going to walk to the pet shop “one foot in front of the other” and buy himself a hamster. Then he made me walk to a pet shop on Cork’s North Main Street so we could look at the hamster he was going to buy. (They’re basically mice which can do cute stuff with their noses.)

The thing is, our five-year-old and Skippy are mad about each other. It must be something to do with them being so close to the ground, but my two kids and Skippy spend a lot of time kneeling around in a circle, adoring each other. They will be devastated when their cat dies, which is sometime in the next three years, according to the internet.