We bought our first family pet, GUPPIES! We got it the day before Madeline's birthday. I was thinking it could be one of her presents but it was our first pet so it should be a family pet. So we had been thinking for a while that we wanted a pet, but we didn't want one that required too much commitment so we would go back and forth between some sort of reptile or something aquatic or a gerbil or something. Just something small. Someday we will have dogs or cats or both, it hasn't been the right time yet. On the Friday before Mad's birthday Weston had a study group so we dropped him off and the kids and I were supposed to run some errands. It was a little before dinner time so the kids were at that odd transition between normal children and inconsolable crazy children. So, of course, the best thing to do, instead of doing an errand they were anticipating, we had an impromptu pit stop at PetSmart. About and hour later we came out with two Guppies, a bowl, gravel, small live water plants, water conditioner, and tropical fish food (*note: notice I did not buy a fish net which will later traumatize my poor boy). (o.0) No we never did our errand, we just went straight home set up our bowl got everything ready and lo and behold our first family pet, two guppies, Mr. Twinkles, named by Oliver, and Two, by Mads.
The kids adored their two little fishes and Mads could not stop staring and giggling.
Unfortunately, they only stayed with us for six days. I had noticed that Mr. Twinkles started to swim slower and sideways and I knew that he wasn't going to last long. I thought that maybe if I cleaned their bowl it might give him a fighting chance. This is where a fish net would have come in handy of course. I scooped both fish out just fine with the cup. It was putting them back in, for some reason, was a little tricky. Two made it in ok, but Mr. Twinkles fell into the sink. Oliver was watching the whole time and his eyes grew big while I tried to put him back in the bowl. It must have been a lot of trauma for the both of them because Oliver wont let me live it down about not having a net after Mr. Twinkles died the next day. I didn't bring any attention to it until after Mads' birthday so he was floating in the bowl for a couple of days which may have been the reason why Two followed suit. It broke Oliver's heart to see Mr. Twinkles floating and he refused to flush him down the toilet because then he would be in with all the poop and pee. He didn't really want to bury him either, because if we moved to another house we wouldn't be able to bring him with us.
Eventually he decided that we could bury him in the back yard and had a little memorial service. Madeline wasn't too shaken up, she was just worried about Oliver. After the memorial service Oliver says, " So can we get another fishy?" I guess the mourning process for little children are quite short. He moved on as soon as we got our new female Betta fish, Corni (named by Oliver). I'm proud to say we've had her now for more than six days and she seems to be doing well. Yay us!
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