Last Fishie Standing

For Princess’ first birthday, we had a Goldfish toss with real Goldfish prizes. At the time I felt like the coolest mom – EVER. Sure, the othermoms may not be psyched about the idea.. but the kids were going to love it! … The complicated boy was going to love it! … and he did.It never dawned on me that these fish have the life span of — well a Goldfish… and that meant one day we would wake up and have to explain to The Complicated Boy that his beloved Dorothy and Hermie (the only pets Mommy ever gave him the ok for), had moved on to a better place… the toilet bowl.

So when the day came for Dorothy, I freaked. I couldn’t imagine the disappointment on my sons face seeing little dorothy floating, the tears, the questions… the heartbreak…

So I did what any reasonable mother would do- I spent the entire day trying to distract the boy from the kitchen so he wouldn’t see it – until Mr. Complicated could come home and dispose of it…. and come up with a good reason why the fish had gone missing. Well when he realized the fish was missing, we panicked and said “Dorothy was sick. So she had to go to the fish doctor, we’ll pick her up next week”… what?

So we did.

Hermie’s new roommate “Dorothy the second” arrived and peace was restored… until the next day when I found Hermie floating— I thought. “THAT BITCH killed him! Great! now I have to do the whole distraction act all over again”

Once again, Mr. Complicated disposed of the fish. This time, when asked we told our son that “Hermie was home sick, and really missed his mom… so he had to go to his mommy home” which when you think about it, probably wasn’t too far from the truth.