See Fish Hide

As you might remember, we got the kids each a betta fish several months ago.  They lived in a small aquarium in Sebastian's room with a divider down the middle so they wouldn't fight and the kids could each see their fish at night and everyone was happy.  Except me.  Because Audrey's fish sucked at life.

We got a "baby betta" that never grew, and it pretended to be dead every day because it hated me or it was making a bubble nest but more likely because it hated me.  It was my nemesis.

But I'm not going to dwell on that because the problem seemed to resolve itself during our trip to Virginia in May.  When I returned, I went to feed the fish and found that the divider keeping Sebastian's awesome blue fish from her sucky pink fish had been removed.  I confronted Aaron (because I would have preferred he scheduled the death match when I was in town), but he said he took it out after finding the little pink fish dead at the top of the tank.  I like to imagine that the little pink fish was just playing dead to try and mess with Aaron the same way it's been messing with me for months and then came to life briefly while it was flushed, feeling fear and remorse and cursing my name as the water drained it into the sewage system, but Aaron insists it was seriously dead this time.

We did what most good parents do when a child's fish died: We didn't tell Audrey and debated whether to pick up another one that looked similar in case she asked.  Avoidance is underrated.  We were tacitly united in this decision, though Aaron decided not to buy a new one before I decided not to buy a new one.

I got caught in a tight spot the other day, when Audrey asked me to lift her up to see her fish.  I said "Well, um..." and froze.  Aaron and I had not covered protocol for this moment, but it seems he had found himself here before with Audrey and she filled me in.

"Mom, pick me up so I can see my fish hiding!  Daddy show me my fish is hiding in the leaves!"

Of course!  While Aaron and I did not confer on the new strategy, I see where he has helped me to evolve to the next step in good parenting, shifting seamlessly from Avoidance to White Lies.  Glad Audrey caught me up.

Good bye fish!  And good riddance!