A couple of weeks ago Belle won a goldfish at a local festival. The man who was running the game was actually very generous to her since she technically didn't win it but he gave her one anyway.
My husband was less than thrilled but played along with the whole idea. We went home and put the fish in an actual fish bowl that my mother in law happened to have.
We ran up to the store and bought fish food and tablets to remove the chlorine from our tap water.
We told Belle that it may not live but that we would try our best. After all this fish was sitting in a baggie of water in the hot sun for who knows how long.
Surprisingly the fish made it through the night. And then another.
Before we knew it we had the fish for a couple of weeks.
Sadly the fish lost his fight for life yesterday. While Belle was home with my mother in law. I was at work and she didn't want to have Belle see it so she put the bowl in our spare room until I got home from work.
The fish was swimming and eating in the morning before I left. But my MIL said she put some new water in the bowl since it looked a little cloudy. Not sure if this contributed to the death or not but she kept calling herself a fish murderer yesterday which made me laugh.
When I got home I brought the bowl back out and Belle was excited to be able to feed it. But I was standing in front of it blocking the bowl so she wouldn't see the floating fish. I told her that her goldfish died and that we had to flush him down the toilet. I told her that it was a good fish and that we will miss it. She was sad and crying. I asked her if she just wanted us to take care of it or if she wanted to see it. (I explained that it was just floating in the bowl) She wanted to look and she did. At this point my husband came home and I was asking Belle if she just wanted Daddy to flush it or if she wanted to be a part of it.
We just let Daddy clean it out.
She was fine and only made little comments about how she misses her fish. But she did say that he lived a long time so it is OK.
Kids are funny and sad all at once.
3 comments:
Awww. So sorry for the loss of the fish.
Those darn "carnival" gold fish are so unpredictable. Might live for a day...might live for years. I actually debated buying my 2 year old niece a goldfish for her birthday -- but I figured my sister would kill me. Either that -- or she'd end up buying my boys a kitten for their birthday!
Sounds like Belle took everything quite well. Some tears and then some perspective. At least Mr Goldfish was loved at the end.
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