Welcome Fishy!

Elijah recieved a free ticket to the indoor swap meet from school. (I know, yipee.) The funny thing is that kids 10 and under are free anyway! So we went this Saturday. I don't know what was more interesting, the contents of the booths or the patrons attending. So we stopped back by the pet shop booth and wrestled with the idea of getting a beta fish. We can't have pets because Rachel is severely allergic to furry animals and the last bunch of goldfish we had died the next day. Stiiiinky, yuck :[ But I always see beta fish just sitting in a cup so I thought that perhaps it would be low maintanence, which is what the Taylor family needs. So we paid our $2 and brought him home. "Fishy" is what Elijah decided to call him. Super-cool, huh? Especially after the other names he had come up with such as "Water-Drinker" and "Red Blue Fish". We all love this little fish! This morning Rachel woke up early to feed him and dumped a bunch of food in the tank. It started to cloud up pretty fast so I changed his water. "Thank you, I can breath now!", I knew he was saying. A few hours later I'm on the couch and I hear clanking in the kitchen. I knew Rachel was in there doing something Fishy. So I sent Elijah in to check on her. A lot of help he was; walked right through the kitchen without even looking up. (I can kind of see the kitchen from the reflection on the glass door to the backyard, visible from where I was sitting in the living room. But I couldn't see Rachel. So I went in there myself and the water is twirling around like a whirlpool with Rachel standing there armed with a butter knife! I said, "What are you doing to Fishy?! You're gonna kill him!" "But why?" Rachel started crying. "You may as well have put him in a blender, Rachel! You keep things out of the fish tank!" "But I love him!" she cries, "let's get him out." "No, you can't take the fish out of the water, he has to stay IN the water!" "Let's put him in the pool." "Rachel, there are chemicals in the pool. Fishy needs to stay in his tank and you do not put anything in his tank!"
So we said a prayer for Fishy. I suggested that we make chocolate chip cookies for him. (Now you know where Rachel gets all of her experimental thinking from.) No, not for him to eat because Fishy can't eat cookies, only fish food. But he would be happy at the idea we had to make them in his honor. Honorable, yes he's an honorable fish. He survived Hurricane Rachel. Also because that's one of our favorite family pastimes is to make chocolate chip cookies together. When we are unified and working together, Fishy will be happy. I don't know what fish can hear or smell or even recognize by sight, but I swear he enjoyed sitting on the kitchen counter with us making cookies because he began to perk up.
Most times when families get a pet they have to learn to take care of them. In our family we learn how to save their lives. I mean, this is an improvement from the goldfish, we've lasted another day! Stay tuned for exciting upcoming events, they are sure to come! :>