RIP Freddie Fishy

Well, as I think I mentioned, we bought Lucas his first fishy as birthday present. We bought it to help us with our nighttime routine. And it worked. Oh, except that recently the fish had been sinking to the bottom and laying there for a few minutes at a time before swimming around again.

After 4-5 days of this, I figured Freddie was on his way to a better place, and I had every intention of going out and getting a replacement so that I could swap them out without Lucas noticing. Life got in the way, and I forgot. John did a lot of the bedtime stuff for the past few days, and when I got Lucas this morning, Freddie had left us.

So today, John ran some errands with Lucas while I ran to Petco to get Freddie 2.0. My plan was to sneak home and clean the tank and replace Freddie. Well, then I remembered that I forgot to buy spring water, and I suspect that Milford's heavily chlorinated water is what did in Freddie 1.0. So I had to wait until tonight, when Lucas is here.

I feel like it's a little early in life to try to explain death to the poor kid. I mean, he will NOT get it, and he doesn't need to at this point. So I let him "help" me clean the tank, like we do every week. He sits on the toilet and watches me clean away. His "job" is to keep an eye on Freddie in his little bowl while I clean the tank. Well this time he was watching a very dead fish "sleeping" on the bottom of the bowl. I told him to wait just a minute, and I would try to wake Freddie up. I made the swap in the other room, and he was none the wiser.

I feel a little guilty about lying to him, but I know I did the right thing. Here's hoping that Freddie 2.0 lives a little longer than his predecessor.

photo via bettafishpictures.com