Gone Fishing

For Christmas we bought Ayden a fish tank. He claimed for close to a year that he had wanted one and his mother and I had always kind of liked the idea. When we purchased our house the formal owners had a fish tank that Ayden thought was really cool. I think I may have mentioned it in a earlier post. In fact he liked it so much that when we moved in he thought the tank came with the house and was very disappointed that the tank had been removed.

His mother and I thought most likely at that moment, although unspoken, that a fish tank was in our future. To be honest I have always really enjoyed fish, but never wanted a tank. When I was younger we had a couple of small tanks. I remember how much work that was involved keeping them clean. We didn't have filters or anything close to what you can get now. I remember the horrible smell of a dirty tank and having to clean it. I remember that the fish would never last that long and they would die. I hated it. I guess you could say it's another horrible childhood experience, but that aside, I enjoy watching fish.

Ayden seems to really love his tank and has enjoyed naming all his fish. He has been influenced by the "Nemo" and "Cars"movies. He has used names "Nemo", "Sharkbait", "Luigi" , "Mator", "Dynaco" etc.

Well the first fish tragedy was caused by our power loss from our Ice storm. I think we froze the poor fish to death. We tried to take steps to save them, put ultimately they all died. We had six fish and one of them had 10 babies the night we brought them home so we had around 16 fish in total. I thought Ayden might take it hard but he has been great. He knows that they must be flushed down the toilet. He seems OK with it. He of course asks questions like "why do fish have to die" and we answer them as best as we can. He gets excited that maybe the fish will now get to visit Zakk in heaven. It's cute.

We have since replenished the tank and the new fish had seem to be doing great until this morning when we woke to a floating "Luigi". Ayden seemed to take it alright. He said "Hey Dad, "Luigi" is doing back flips when he's dead!"

If we all could just do back flips when we die. That would be something.