G.D. FISH

Andrew FINALLY earned his fish. I swear, his chart has been almost full for weeks. He just won't try new foods. He could give a crap about his reward...he would rather stay a picky eater. But I couldn't just chuck this chart, right? Follow through and all that parenting garbage? File this under "Failed parenting strategies".

So FINALLY, he tried some corned beef on Saturday night. Amen, Hallelujah. Let's just clear off that G.D. chart already. Sure, meat isn't much of a "new food" for Andrew. But it's better than his last suggestion (when he tried pineapple Jello for the first time...he's had Jello...just not pineapple...smarty pants).

So we made a big deal about getting this stupid fish. Andrew was PSYCHED. We thought of a name for this little fish (Nemo...aren't we creative. I voted for Herman, but Nemo won out). We get all dressed and showered and out the door. Okay, so Jeff and I showered. Poor Lily and Andrew get to parade around dirty. Their skin, people. They have dry skin. ;) We get to the pet store and Andrew is literally jumping up and down in the fish aisle. He picks out the fish he wants. A very easy to kill, hard to maintain fish. Of course. We persuade him to get a goldfish. Until we talk to someone who works there.

Have these people never worked with parents before? Aren't fish the traditional pet of kids? Shouldn't they be a bit seasoned? This pet-store-working-dude goes on and on about how goldfish get too big for small tanks, and recommends the $50 fish tank to go with some smaller, less orange (aka less Nemo-ish) fish. Huh? I'm going to spend $50 on the frickin' TANK for a fish my kid will forget about in a week? Seriously.

We ended up poring over the tanks and we selected a much smaller tank, a cool little statue for the fish to swim through, and some red rocks (what a surprise...Andrew picked red). We convinced Andrew to get these smaller, easier to care for fish. This one variety has spots on it's tail that looks like the Mickey Mouse head. Sold! To the cute, still-jumping boy in Aisle 9. With our arms filled to the brim with fish products, we wave down another employee. THIS employee (of the chick variety) says, "Oh, you should take that tank home and run it for a week before you put fish in it. I feel so bad. No fish today."

What? You were standing there 15 minutes ago when your colleague gave a dissertation on tank size. Couldn't one of you have mentioned THEN that my little boy would not be bringing home a fish...just an empty tank.

Long story a little bit shorter, we left sans fish. To Andrew's immense credit, he didn't even cry. He almost did, but he pulled it together (I love 3 year olds...so long 2's). We took him to McDonald's as compensation.

And now we have a fully functioning little fish tank...empty as can be. What to know something even sadder than this story? Andrew spent 10 minutes watching the empty tank.

Worse yet...the fish saga isn't over. We have to go BACK to the G.D. store next week. Arghhhhhh!