Fish.

Alex had 4 green light days in a row last week.  4 DAYS IN A ROW!  And then he was awesome all weekend.  Crazy, but awesome.  He was super polite and funny.  There was so much praise going on for every single good thing he did, it was a little nutty.  But I was just so happy he wasn't being horrible.  Now if the seasons could just follow his lead and be done with this crap weather, all would be right in the world.  You're on a whole big string of red lights Mother Nature.

On Friday after I picked him up, we went to the pet store to get dog food.  When you take him with, you best set aside a good hour you are willing to be in a pet store.  He has to look at everything.  Everything.  Every single bird, hamster, rat, mouse, cat, dog, fish, dog toy, cat toy, spider, lizard and snake.  This time he spent a really long time in the fish section.  After a while I asked him if he would want a fish in his room.  He looked at me like I was the dumbest person in the world and said, "Moooooom...fish need to be in water."  Yes, I know, I meant would you like a tank full of water with a fish in it to take up residence in your room?  Better?  Yes?  Yes.  Ok, let's run it past Dad and then we can come back tomorrow.

Travis was fine with it, so after gymnastics, we headed over to the pet store.  We meandered around for a bit and then headed to the fish section.  It took a whole lot of saying no to convince him we weren't getting a tank full of feeder fish, but I finally steered him to the Betas.  I was having a hard time deciding on a tank, so instead of breaking out in a sweat, I asked the sales associate that was nearby.  And he was oh so nice to show us this Beta tank they got in recently that has this super cool divider so you can get not only one, but TWO Betas and they are separated so they won't kill each other.  How nice of him to show us the only tank that could hold two Betas!  I asked Alex if he wanted one or two fish.  His answer?  Three.  Thanks fish store dude...there is no way I'm getting out of this with one fish.  So we buy the tank with the divider, pick out gravel and plants and head over to pick out our fish.  While we were waiting for the guy to put the fish in travel appropriate bags, I asked Alex what he wanted to name the fish.  Without missing a beat and with a very definite tone, he replied, "Uno and Dos."  I so want to crawl in his head and watch his brain work.

We got home and he helped me set up the tank.  We let the water sit for a bit and then floated the bags so the water was all the same temp and then into the tank with Uno and Dos.  We watched them for a bit and Alex dropped in some food along with encouraging words to get them to eat.  I'm sure we would have watched until every morsel of food was consumed, but we had to get going.  Going for an overnight stay to be exact.  I wasn't concerned about the fish.  They were fed and would be good to go until we got back the next evening.

My lack of concern would have been fine except for one little detail.  That cool divider thingy?  Yeah.  It apparently doesn't sit flush against the front of the tank.  It's only about a 1/4" away, but you wanna guess how wide a Beta is?  Juuuuuust a hair under a 1/4".

Alex was asleep when we got home, so I put him in bed and checked on the fish.  Dos was not lookin' good.  Like not lookin' good to the point I had to poke him to make sure he was alive.  He swam around, so I turned my attention to the filter to make it was working properly.  And while I was doing that, I noticed Uno was all of a sudden on the same side as Dos.  Suddenly, Dos's disheveled appearance made much more sense.  Uno took a couple pot shots at Dos and then wiggled back over on his side with his pristine fins, all like, "What?  Who?  Me?  Dos?  Oh, no, I didn't do that.  I don't know who did that...I was just swimming around on my half of the tank."

I will be absolutely shocked if Dos is alive when we get home.

So now I have to come up with a reason why this fish has died.  I could tell the truth, that these fish fight and one fish ends up dying.  But I can just imagine the wonderful things that would come out of this kid's brain the very next time he is fighting with one of his friends.  In the interest of not scarring other people's children, I think I am just going to give the ol' "Fish just die sometimes." and see how that flies.

This is gonna suck.