26 Hour Fish

I've tried four nights in a row now to upload pictures from over a week ago. But it will not work for some reason. So I'll skip ahead a little and just write this. About a week and a half  ago we went to a sand bottom pool in the area on their last day of the season. Apparently every year on the last day they release goldfish into the pool for kids to catch. Kind of a cute idea! And we just happened to be there for it.

Now if you know me at all, you probably know I never ever wanted a pet. Of any kind. Ever. But watching Tyler with his little bucket and net try to catch a fish was so sweet. And I truly wanted him to catch one. In fact, I even prayed that he would. Because I didn't want his little heart to be sad. But at the same time, I really didn't want a fish to take care of.

At one point Tyler got so excited and said, "I caught two little tiny fish!!" It was adorable, especially since they were two tiny little leaves. I didn't quite know how to tell him that they weren't actually fish. So thankfully in his quest to catch a bigger one the other two "swam" away and he didn't care.

After awhile he gave up and decided he wanted to go on the water slide, but as he started walking over there another little boy went up to him with a fish and asked if he wanted it! It was so sweet and Tyler was sooo excited. I was impressed with that boy - how nice of him was that?!

So anyway, we brought home a goldfish. But we really weren't prepared to own a fish. After the boys went to bed Carl ran out and bought some fish food, but we still didn't have a fantastic place for it to live. Just a short, wide, glass vase.

Let's be honest here. We didn't really expect the fish to live very long. Carl even warned Tyler that it might not. It was swimming in chlorine water. And we didn't have any fresh water to bring it home in so it swam in chlorine for quite awhile.

But Tyler and Carsten loved that little fish. Tyler loved feeding it and Carsten loved watching it. And trying to sneak his little hand in to catch it.

But sadly, after they went to bed the next night, it died. It was the oddest thing. It was swimming around and looked just fine when Tyler fed it before bed. Although it never really ate anything.

I was not looking forward to telling him the next morning, but he handled it pretty well. At first he just said, "Oh." But then he burst into tears. He cried loudly and intensely for about 1-2 minutes. But we snuggled up on the couch and then he was ok.

Since then every once in awhile he still brings it up. He will say he misses his fish. Or that he wants a new fish. Today Carsten was crying at lunch because he was tired. But Tyler said, "Are you sad because our fish is gone? It's ok Buddy. I'm sad about that too." He's just the sweetest.

Carl really wants to get them a new fish... We'll see what happens I guess. I told him that if we get another fish I will feed it. But I absolutely will not ever clean the tank or take care of it in any other way. And I'll stand by that. :-)