Saturday, May 30, 2009

Fishy


My husband has an aquarium screensaver on his PC and every time my son sees this, he runs over to the screen, points at the fish and says 'shshy'.  I'm working on the f's with him.  Shshy is now bishy.  Close.

I was bored the other day so I took him to Petsmart to check out the real fish.  I had no idea that when I tried to leave that he would throw the worlds biggest hissy.  He sounded like he was being murdered.  Or the fish were being murdered.

'Mmmmaaaaammmmmaaaaa!  Bishhhhhyyyyyyyy-yyyy-yyyyy'  
"Noooooooooooo..... Bishyyyyyyyyyyyy!'

To avoid further embarrassment, I turned the cart around and we went back to the tanks.  This led to me pricing the tanks, rocks and everything else for him.  He thought we were leaving again even after I explained what I was doing - finding a house for the fish.  He seemed satisfied enough when I gave him the net to hold.  Like that was the sign he was getting some fish to take home.

The last thing - getting the fish.  He had to pick them out.  Himself.  Of course, catching the fish you want from a tank of 3000 feeder goldfish is easy right?  We ended up with 3 different colored ones.  A white/silver mix, an all orange and and orange/black combo.  Off we go to the register, this time without screaming.  That bulging with air, fish filled bag is in his little hands and he's fascinated.  I had to pry it away from him so they could get the codes to ring it up.  All the way home, he held the bag.  I couldn't look bag there because each time I thought I'd find the bag opened or being tossed around.  Poor fish weren't going to survive the short trip home.

But they did.  I had them sitting in the sink getting acclimated to the new water temperature while I fixed up the tank.  No small feat mind you, when there are tiny little hands darting here and there trying to get some piece of the setup.  Plants, rocks, air stone.........

Its finally ready and in go the fish.  There was this loud 'ooooooohhhhhhhhhhh' that escaped from him.  He makes that sound whenever he finds something he likes (and probably shouldn't have).  Seeing his fish for the first time must have really excited him.  

And then he started talking to them.  He leans in really close and just babbles.  Baby babbles.  The word 'bishy' comes out every once in a while and he points his crooked little finger at them.  We're still working on the 'don't poke the fish' rule.  That concept is not grasped yet.  These poor fish are going to die of a crooked finger induced heart attack.  Which proves my point when I told the fish girl at Petsmart that we didn't need the 200 gallon tank for the feeder fish.  My little one gallon would do just fine.  If they make it past the weekend, I'll consider upgrading.

This is when I notice that the white/silver one is missing an eye.  Oh lordy.  He'll be the first to go.  2 days later and he's still hearty.  Looking at the missing eye, it doesn't look like its fresh.  Maybe he was born eyeless.  Who knows.  He just has a hard time finding food from that angle so I need to make sure I drop some on the side of his good eye.

So we now have One Eyed Pete, Marley and Bishy.  One Eyed Pete is obvious.  Marley is the all orange fish and Bishy is the orange/black one.

And so begins the adventure in fish parenthood.  We need to work on the feeding.  Nick thinks the flakes are for him.  He also wants to play ball with them.  He'll drag the chair over during the day and climb up there with the ball.  Its bounced on the countertop in front of these poor fish.  Heart attack waiting to happen......

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