Our fish died this week. In my mind I thought, "Pebbles lived a good long life for a beta fish. Let's go to the pet store and find his replacement." That is not what happened however. Somehow talk turned from a replacement beta fish to "let's get a chameleon". The kids were asking for hamsters, lizards, dogs - you name it. Unfortunately for them, Mark and I are not huge animal people. I talked them back down to getting a fish and every day Paolo asked "can we get a fish today?" Well, later in the week, Nana agreed to take them to the pet store so Paolo and Elise went along and showed up sometime later, not with a beta fish, but with 3 goldfish, a pleicostimus (sucker fish) and a 10 gallon aquarium. They were so excited and said that the lady at the pet store said that if we wanted them to live a long time, they would need an aquarium. Of course they would - I was not so excited. My thoughts were - where are we going to put this thing? Who is going to clean it? Now we have to go buy a pump and rocks and plants.....
There have been so many times throughout my married life that I have seen first hand how it truly must be the way God planned it for children to have 2 parents. Someone's got to be up if the other is down. Someone's got to be strong if the other is feeling week. And someone has got to see wonder and curiousity when the other sees mess and clutter. When I told Mark about the aquarium, he was all for it and it made me think. What was going on in my life that an aquarium would cause me stress? How was I missing the complete joy and excitement on my 5 year olds face from something as simple as a goldfish?
The next day, Ava and I went down to the petstore and bought the filter and the rocks and the plants and I got to witness even more wonder and curiousity on the face of my 2 year old as we walked through the store looking at birds and rats and kittens and all kinds of beautiful fish. I cleared a perfect spot for the aquarium in the house and the kids loved putting it all together and watching the fish as we dumped them into their home. Such a small thing, but I welcome the small things that bring me clarity and help me to enjoy my children while they are young.
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