It has been a Circle of Life kinda day.

This morning we woke to the news of new life; a close friend of Clara's is a brand new big sister and a wonderful friend of mine is now a Mama of TWO! We were very excited all morning... well, Clara and I were excitedly talking about babies and Leo kept chanting "Lala, Lala, Lala" (aka Mariella) so I think he was psyched about something as well!

Unfortunately, as with theproverbial circle of life, with life comes death... Our black goldfish Dory died sometime today. Marc took the role of bearer of bad news and he did a fantastic job. He was matter of fact and let Clara watch while he fished Dory out of the tank. She looked at Dory and said "goodbye" and they flushed her down the toilet. Then the tears came. I hugged my grieving daughter (again) and listened to her, what she said was incredible, it tells me so much about my sweet girl's loving nature.

(With tears streaming down her cheeks)"I'm sad Dory died, I'm gonna miss Dory, she was my pet." (Then big sobs started) "Now Nemo is going to be lonely, he's all alone without Dory, I need to draw a picture of Dory and put it behind the tank so Nemo can see it and so he won't be lonely. Soon we'll get a new friend for Nemo."

So, as you can imagine out came the water colours and Clara drew a picture of Dory, complete with Dory's arms, legs, hair, and tummy! I swear that is what she told us as she painted. By the time the painting was complete Clara had worked through her feelings and was ready for bed. I couldn't have asked for a better first experience with death.

FYI, Dory is in the middle of the water and seaweed. The blue circle in the middle is her "tummy", the yellow lines are her "legs", and the purple fins are in fact her "wings" according to the artist!