So...I guess we're...fish people?

I love animals.  Ben loves animals.  The kids love animals.  So why have we failed so much in the pet area of our lives??  I don't know.  Maybe it's because I get stressed easily.  Maybe it's because I can't stand fecal matter or urine to touch any area of my house.  Maybe it's because I have my hands really, really full.  Maybe someday I'll have the mental strength to do the dog thing.  Because I really want to.  I love doggies. 

Oh, did I ever tell you we got rid of Xena?  This was...awhile ago.  Last spring, maybe?  She was peeing all over our beds.  Ben had had enough and took her to the humane society.  At least this time it was him, and not me that got rid of the pet.  And he's a big-time cat person.  But again, bodily fluids touching any part of our house...not cool with either of us.

Anywaysssss, whenever the kids bring up getting another pet, I always tell them that maybe I'll be ready to do that when Gage gets potty-trained.  Which I'm beginning to think will never, ever happen.  He definitely regressed when we moved.  Because of me.  When a woman is packing an entire house and moving it, she doesn't often have time to ask if her developmentally-delayed son needs to pee, listen to the silence of him not saying whether or not he needs to go pee, put him on the potty and him maybe or maybe not peeing, etc.

This is so funny - Gage's new sunbeams teacher came over this week to introduce herself and give him a cookie, which was really sweet.  And she was sitting down with him and telling him that he needs to raise his hand if he has a question, and to fold his arms during the prayer, etc. And he's looking at her and, like, drooling.  And Ben and I are thinking, "He has no ideeeeea what you're talking about..."  Funny, and sad.  I hope someday he'll catch up with other kiddos his age.  But for now, he's just not at their level yet.  I get envious of normally-developed three-year-olds that I see.  I get sad.  And I get scared.  But we're doing all we can.  And he is making progress.

Sorry.  Huge tangent.

Kay, so Sadie, for weeks, was all, "I really want my own fish for Christmas."  And Ben and I were all, "Yeah, we think we can do this.  Not too hard.  Clean their tank once a week.  No biggie." 

I picked out a betta fish.  They're so pretty, and you only get one of them, and I felt like that would work for us.

I had to take Micah with me to get the fish, and then, of course, he decided that he needed a fish, too.  And I was all, fiiiiiiiiine.  So later on, I went back and got him a different kind of betta, a crowntail:

He's gorgeous, right?  So we kept them hidden in our closet, but Ben was feeling all badly for them.  "They need interaction and light, Kar.  Let's put them on our dresser and just keep our bedroom door closed."  Ha!  Like the kids don't ever enter a closed room.  So one day, I'm in there, and Sadie and Micah walk in, and they see the fish, and this dawning of realization comes across their faces, and they slowly start smiling, and their eyes become as wide as saucers, and I'm like, "Um, Merry Christmas.  Early."

Sheesh.

The kids were sooo excited.  They insisted on keeping the fish in their bedrooms.  Sadie named hers Rosie (she knows that only the boys are the beautiful, colorful ones, but she wants us all to pretend Rosie is a girl).  Micah named his Blue Star.  Rosie is very, very friendly.  When you come in the room, she's like, "What's up?  How are you?  Are you going to feed me?  I'm so happy!"  Blue Star is grumpy and very antisocial.  He hides in his Squidword house all the time. 

Ben was obsessed with these fish.  He would worry if they were warm enough.  He worried about any level of warmth in the water giving the water a small amount of saltiness (because we have a water softener in this house.  WHICH I LOVE).  So when Ben cleaned the bowls, he would fill them with cold water, then microwave the water until it came to room temperature.  Not kidding.  He obsessed about their food.  He worried that they weren't eating well, so he got the pebble kind instead of the flake kind.  He was always visiting the fish and talking to them.  And staring at them wistfully. 

Finally, on Christmas Eve, I said, "Ben, do you want a fish?  Because we can get you one, too, you know.  They're, like, $3.50."  He was like, "OKAY!!"  and off we went to Petco on Christmas Eve.  He got another kind of betta fish - I think they're called Double Tail or something:

He's really so beautiful.  It took Ben about an hour to decide which one he wanted.  He named his fish Flit, because he flits all around.  He went back to Petco a couple of days ago and got a moss rock thing for Flit's bowl, along with two shrimp that can clean said moss rock and eat up leftover food that Flit doesn't eat.  He named the shrimp Jacques and Pierre.  I love watching the shrimp do their thing.  And they are quite the little acrobats. 

Ben quite happily takes on fish feeding duty and bowl-cleaning duty.  He won't let anyone else do it.  He's so funny.

So yeah, now we have three fish.  But so far, they aren't stressing me out, which is good.  Because I have a house full of unpacked stuff still stressing me out.  But the kitchen is all in (except for some 9X13 inch pans that I forgot at the other house), and I've been able to cook, which is really important to me.  So we're making progress.