1 Fish, 2 Fish, Red Fish, Dead Fish....

One of Emma's favorite things to do after school used to be going to her grandmas work, which is right across the parking lot of her school, and feeding her fish!  Every time we would go over there that's the first thing she would ask to do.  Well, a couple months ago grandma had to "send the fish to one of her friends house" (the fish died, you can get away with the lame excuse with a 4 year old).  Emma hasn't stopped talking about the freaking fish so her grandma told her she would take her to the store to help her pick up a new one for her office and buy one for Emma as well.

So a couple weeks ago I thought we had made plans to go and pick out the lovely new fish that i'm going to end up feeding and changing the water.  We drive over to grandmas house and she's not there. We called her about 100 times and now answer...WTF??  Emma's freaking out.  We took her to go eat and continued to stock grandma frantically trying to get a hold of her so we could get the fish and the I...I mean the kids could nap.  We finish our healthy lunch at McDonalds and still can't seem to locate grandma so finally we ask Emma if it's ok if we just take her to get the fish.  After 10 minutes of screaming and crying she agrees.  

We walk into petco and her eyes were as big as i've ever seen them.  I thought for sure we'd be there for an hour trying to decide on which fish to take home.  After about 20 min of talking her into the cheapest fish she finally picked one out!  A lovely little green and redish betta that she decided to name Rainbow (such a 4 year old name)

Rainbow #1

We get Rainbow home and situated in his new digs.  We fed him and he didn't seem to eat but I figured he had a long day and wasn't hungry.  Over the next few days I realized this fish hasn't eaten or pooped since we got him.  Of coarse we picked out the bum fish!!  Fast forward to a few days ago Emma wanted to feed him and I look in the bowl and he's completely bloated and white.  After Emma went to bed I snuck in and took him out of her room.  I looked online and diagnosed him with dropsy, some betta disease.  It says to give him an epsom salt bath.  So Kris comes home and i'm standing in the kitchen giving the damn fish an epsom salt bath trying everything I can to make this little guys survive so I don't have to break it to my 4 year old he's gone to fishy heaven.

By Friday he was even worse.  Emma woke up early and I told her to grab the ipad.  I look at her in the monitor (yes, my 4 year old still has a video monitor in her room and she will till she moves out if I have anything to do with it) and she standing completely confused staring at her dresser where rainbow usually is.  I asked what was wrong over the intercom and she asked where her fish was.  I told her it was cold in her room so i put him in the kitchen.  When I went out to the kitchen of coarse....there was rainbow floating on his bloated belly.  

Now the fun part....do we discuss life and death and all that fun stuff or do i just get a new fish ASAP to save myself the conversation.  I texted grandma a picture of rainbow and told her to get a replacement and bring it at nap time.  Luckily Emma didn't ask about him all morning.  I put the girls to bed for naps and grandma shows up with a new fish...who's laying at the bottom of his little cup looking paralyzed not moving at all....of coarse....another bum fish!

Rainbow #2

She jumps back in the car and back off to petco she goes.  Well they had no more green fish so she gets a blue one....who looks NOTHING like rainbow.  I had my story set on what to tell Emma.  Did you know that when betta's get older they can change from green to blue??  I didn't either, but that's my story and i'm sticking to it!  I thought for sure she would call us out on it but so far she hasn't even noticed.  I even moved him back into her room since it's not as cold in there anymore ;) I now introduce to you the newest member of our family who will hopefully stick around longer than the last one....Rainbow (#3)

Rainbow #3