the fish

When we were preparing to go to the carnival, I prepared the boys for all the excitement. It's so much fun to get them excited for something big like the carnival (I mean, these kids get excited for PB&J everyday for lunch, so something big like the carnival was really something to get excited about.)

I told them we would go on rides and play games and eat treats, and their eyes got bigger and bigger and all day long they asked me about the carnival.

As luck would have it the rides were much cheaper than we thought they would be, but the games were still quite pricey.

I really had a problem paying $6 for Porter and Bridger to swing a hammer and see how strong they are.

So for most of the evening we rode rides and ate cotton candy and had a lot of fun.

As we were headed out of the park, Porter reminded me that we were supposed to play games. I had told him that we would play games, and not wanting to go back on my word, I set out to find a game that was less than $6 a pop.

We came upon a classic carnival game. The one where there are hundreds of fish bowls set up with water in each of them and you take ping pong balls and you try to throw the ping pong ball into one of the bowls. And it was only $2 for both the boys.

Kyle grabbed my arm as I headed to the game and said, "If they win, they get a fish... do you want a fish?"

"Of course I don't want a fish, but they aren't going to win one, nobody wins this game. They'll play it and we'll go home."

As Bridger picked up the last ball to throw, the lady who was running the booth came over and picked up a bowl and held it right in front of Bridger's face for him to dump the ball in.

Kyle's face was priceless, and I'm sure mine was as well.

The lady walked over and picked up a bag with the tiniest fish I have ever seen swimming around in it.

The boys were ecstatic.

We started walking home and coming up with names for our new little pet, when Porter turned to me and asked (very enthusiastically), "Can I eat him tomorrow Mom? Can I?" 

"Porter, we don't eat him. He's a pet."

"Mom, when you catch a fish, then, you eat the fish."

"Porter, we didn't catch the fish, we won the fish. He's a pet and we don't eat pets."

He seemed pretty content with that answer and he started to get even more excited that we now had a pet.

We got home and put the little guy in a mason jar for the night with plans to go out and get a little fish bowl and food the next day. 

We named him Max.

Porter woke up the next morning, thrilled to see and feed his pet. When we got downstairs to the mason jar we saw little Max with his belly floating at the top of the jar. Porter asked me if he was sleeping and I said no. Then Porter asked if he had died and I told him yes. Max had died.

And then, with the saddest little eyes I have ever seen, Porter turned and asked me the question that would turn my $2 miserly splurge into a $25 investment.

"Mom, will we ever have a pet that doesn't die?"

"Yes, yes we will. In fact we'll get you a new fish today!"

And we promptly headed out to get us some fish.

And that's how Kevin and Russell joined our little family. 

I'm proud to say that they have now been alive for well over a week, and Porter has finally stopped asking every morning if they are dead.
The boys are so excited to have the fish and they take great care of them.

I'm also proud to say that I've learned a couple things from this experience. 

#1.  Kyle is almost always correct.

 and

#2.  A $6 hammer swing is actually cheaper than the $2 fish game.