A Tale of Two Fishes

My kids are crazy about these stuffies (stuffed animals) that have huge eyeballs. Do you know what I mean? They seem to be for sale by every cash register in the grocery store or craft store. They are kind of cute, but I try REALLY hard to limit the number of stuffies that enter our house because I swear they procreate and multiply.

Anyway, the girls have been sleeping peacefully (mostly) in their separate rooms all last week and Zuzu has been doing her chores (making her bed and clearing and wiping the table after dinner) and her math enrichment work for Kumon without fuss (mostly), so I'd told them that they could get a new stuffie.

I had a bit of a rough day on Saturday--nothing went quite as I planned and I developed a headache in the afternoon, so David offered to take the girls to get stuffies while I ran some other errands and I TOTALLY took him up on it because that was basically the nicest thing he could have done for me at that moment in time.

I was looking at framing options for a couple of prints at the store when I got a text from David saying he didn't want to spend $12 on stuffed animals and could he get the girls a fish tank instead--it was on sale.

I said sure as long as I didn't have to clean it.

So to avoid spending $12 on stuffies, David spent far more on a fish tank, a castle to go inside the tank, seaweed, and neon rocks.

Plus the neon colored fish Zuzu and Coco really wanted were $9 each.

BUT the tank was on sale!

Anyway, they got the tank all set up on Saturday and on Sunday we went back to get the fish. Zuzu picked out a purple one (Flipper) and a yellow one (Shakey) and she and Coco fought loudly over who got to carry them to the car. I arbitrated a truce in which they shared carrying the bag, then I held it in the car on the way home.

We got home, put the fish in the tank, and waited to feed them until they had gotten adjusted.

But a few hours later, Zuzu came downstairs and said, "Mommy, I think Flipper is sleeping or maybe dead."

Uhhh...

Flipper was in fact, floating listlessly in the fake seaweed of the tank. Shakey, however, looked fine. So I texted David, "One of the effing fish is already dead." And I told Zuzu when Daddy got home he would take a look at Flipper and see if she needed to go to the vet.

Well, by the time David got home, both Flipper and Shakey needed resuscitation.

David told Zuzu he was taking them to the PetSmart Hospital and AMAZINGLY when he got home, Flipper and Shakey were both good as new.

(Emphasis on NEW.)

We were told that the adjustment to water temperature might have been too much for poor Flipper and Shakey, so the second time around we lowered the bag from the store (still closed) into the water so the temperature would adjust slowly, then after a couple of hours, opened the bag so they could swim out into the tank. I wish we had gotten this advice the FIRST time around. RIP, Original Flipper and Shakey.

As of this morning, the new-and-alive Flipper and Shakey are both flippin' and shakin' (or swimming idly and staring listlessly, as fish are wont to do), so I'm relieved. The girls are still very enchanted by them, so i hope they live long and happy lives.



UPDATE: Today after school, both fish are dead. WTF. I feel terribly sad and guilty, and also annoyed. What are we doing WRONG? David had a cichlid fish that lived for TEN YEARS and survived FOUR MOVES. Now we are accidental fish murderers instead of fish nurturers.


Also Coco had a huge and unsourceable meltdown after school, and I sliced my big toe open on a walk with the dog and girls just before dinner. After a lovely weekend, Monday strikes with a vengeance.