Guppies...And Guppies

Dear Laney,

GUPPIES, PART I:

This past winter, you and your friend Amya entered the "Guppies" swimming class at the local YMCA. You performed whatever skills were necessary to graduate (front stroke, back float, hang on the wall and gossip) and now you're ready to join the next class level. Which reminds me: I need to call the Y. Or hire an intern with really low expectations who will handle this kind of scheduling task. 

You guys were fearless and fun and I loved watching you every week. Can't wait for you to become an Eel or a Stingray or an Orca or whatever. 

GUPPIES, PART II

You wanted a horse for Christmas. Our family friend Clay Mercer owns Tucker the horse and even though you haven't seen Tucker for a few years, he still made a surprise appearance on this "List of Things I Love" that you wrote in early December: 

NO idea how Ella got top billing.

"Let's start with a goldfish," I said. "And we'll see how that goes, and then we can maybe start working our way up."

Grandpops bought you a small fish tank for Christmas, and in early January I took you to (God help me) Walmart,  where you picked out three 27-cent fish. I don't even think they're officially goldfish; I think they're meant to be feeder fish that you'd feed to other, bigger, prettier fish. I suggested we buy three because I figured one or two would die immediately. The lifespan of a 27-cent Walmart fish could probably be measured in hours, I figured. 

Nope. 

Like everything else in our house, the fish put on weight immediately and are almost annoyingly healthy. You named them Silvers and Goldie and Poppy, and they are filthy little poop machines. The small, reasonably-sized tank that Grandpops gave you needed to be cleaned every week, which became my job. I don't know if we have discussed this before, but I have a fairly advanced fear of fish. I do not like to swim in water with fish in it. Sometimes your dad has to tell me "There are no fish in this section of the river," which is a ridiculous lie that makes absolutely no sense, but because he's a by-God Hydrologist (and gifted enabler), I choose to believe him. When I was your age, we'd go to the beach for vacations and the little ocean minnows would swim up to my feet and I'd scream and run in place and Granny Jack would say, "It's okay. They just want to nibble on your toes." Why she thought this would help, I DO NOT KNOW. 

I do not like dealing with these fish. More often than not, this is how that tank cleaning went: I'd somehow get the fish into a separate holding container...Mason jar, etc...and then clean out the gravel and rinse off the plastic plants and neon cave and refill the tank with clean water. Then, in the process of transferring the fish back into the newly-clean tank, one of them would go flopping out into the kitchen sink into a dirty frying pan. You would scream your head off and start crying because your precious fish who had triumphed over adversity by making it out of Walmart was now convulsing on top of some hash browns. I'd confront my fish fears, grab a serving spoon or spatula, scoop it up, and drop it into the tank in the nick of time...along with about two tablespoons of leftover hash browns. 

Goldfish eat hashbrowns, turns out.  

Silvers, grumpy as hell after the Hash Brown Incident.

Poppy (top) and Goldie (below)

I decided I couldn't take the weekly near-death experiences, so I went back to the store and bought a bigger tank for our fat fish, one that comes with a filter so I won't have to do so much fish-transferring. You insisted on the Spongebob Squarepants pineapple house, and have created a replica of Spongebob's neighborhood in the tank:

I am now $40 in to three 27-cent goldfish. There is a metaphor for parenthood in here somewhere.

And when those dumb little fish finally do go to the Great Pineapple In The Sky, I'm going to be totally bummed out. 

Love,

Mom