The Class Fish

I got an urgent email Thursday. The room mom for my son’s class desperately needed someone to please get Blue Fin, the class fish on Friday for the holiday week. I somewhat foolishly agreed. It’s a single beta fish in a 1 gallon aquarium. How hard could this be?  My acceptance was greeted with a warning:  the water needs changing. 

Ok. I’ve had fish before. I’ve done some changing of water–you trade out some for some fresh. No biggie. Right?

Wrong.  I ran over during my planning period to grab the fish. The plan was just to bring him to my classroom until the end of the day and then take him home. 

The plan changed when I got to my son’s class. The aquarium was disgusting. You couldn’t even see the fish unless he happened to be against the edge. There seemed to be some type of turtle in there too, but the water was too brown to tell. 

The teacher said the kids had overfed the fish while she had been out due to illness the previous week. My son says it’s been getting worse since the first week of school. I don’t know. I just know I found a disgusting brown tank that may or may not have a fish and a turtle.

I put the aquarium on the floor of the van behind my seat. I got in. Within minutes I was nearly gagging from the smell. Instead of returning to my school, I ran the aquarium home. I couldn’t take it at school. I went ahead and filled a bowl of water to come to room temp beside the aquarium. 

I left to get back to work, while praying there was a Blue Fin in there. 

I regrouped quickly. I borrowed water conditioner from the biology teacher. As soon as we could leave, we came straight home and started the process of rescuing Blue Fin. 

With the “help” of 3 7 year olds, I started by pulling out the filter and the plastic plants. I filled a small bowl with some of the room temperature water I had fixed at lunch. I had no net and there was no way I was saving even a drop of this disgusting water. 

So I reached in and pulled out the turtle. That turned out to be a decoration. That left rocks and a fish. I grabbed the fish and dumped it into the small bowl of fresh water. 

I then washed every inch of the inside of that aquarium. I washed the plastic plants and the filter. I rinsed the rocks several times. The amount of gunk was disgusting. I rebuilt the aquarium scene, minus the goo and the fish. 

My son had a birthday party to go to, so we went, leaving a weak Blue Fin in a small bowl and an aquarium of clean water running through a nasty filter. 

The party was next to PetSmart, so I ran in to check on a replacement filter. $3 for 2. SOLD!  Blue Fin would have a clean filter and a spare!

As soon as we got home, my son was all about Blue Fin. We needed to get him in his home. I wanted to get the new filter in and working before we moved him home, so I changed that out and sent my son to get ready for bed. 

Since we had been gone over 2 hours, and home for nearly 30 minutes, I decreed the water set enough to take Blue Fin. 

We dumped him in.  He stayed perfectly still for a long time. Then he seemed to realize he was home again and could see!

So, we have a happy Blue Fin.  We didn’t feed him last night because his old tank was so filled with food. This morning my son put in 2 tiny granules which Blue Fin ignored. 

Tonight I added 3 more tiny granules. No movement from Blue Fin toward them. But he’s happily swimming around. 🙂 

I like to think we saved him. He’s got a happy home now. I’m also afraid I’ve done such a great job I’ll earn the “privilege” of having him here every break. 

Slowing down and Sleeping in…

As adults always on the go, it’s hard to remember that kids need unscheduled time. I limit my kids’ participation in stuff, but still, it’s a crazy schedule. 

This past week went like this: 

Sunday: arrived home from their dad’s at 5:30. Immediately they hit their bikes (we have a limited area of the neighborhood they are allowed to ride in) and were gone until 6, time for dinner. Bedtime is 7:30 and they also wanted some Kindle time (they get 30 minutes to 1 hour of screen time a day). 

Monday we left my school at 4 and headed for allergy shots. We left there at 5 and headed to grab fast food on the way to tryouts for basketball and basketball cheerleading. My son has asked to play basketball again–he did 2 years ago, and since team sports have so many positives, he is again. I don’t see him as a future basketball star, but that’s ok. His sisters have begged to cheer and since they have basketball cheerleading, I’m letting them do that. The season is only 2 months. We decided to play through the Upward program. We finished our part at 7 Monday. We then rushed home to try for their 7:30 bedtime. 

Tuesday:  Election Day and student holiday. I had to work a teacher workday though, so they went with me for the morning and then my mom kept them after lunch.  When I went to get them, they were actively playing with their cousin with whom they get very little play time, so I stayed and got some much needed time with my mom. When we left there, it was already 6, so we grabbed dinner on the way home (another mom fail night) and were home by 7, scrambling to make bedtime. 

Wednesday: back to the grind of school and our usual routine. The girls have gymnastics at 5, so we ran home after school, got them ready and were headed there. My son and I hit BJs to restock on stuff while the girls were in class. We grabbed them, came home, I fixed a quick dinner, and rushed everyone to bed. 

Thursday may become my favorite day of the week. It’s Cub Scout night. What makes it awesome is my mom feeds us dinner and then keeps the girls while my son and I go to scouts. We don’t finish scouts until 7:45, so it’s always a late night. We came home and it was off to bed. 

Friday morning my daughter (d2) asked me if on Saturday she could please sleep in as late as she wanted. Fortunately I had NOTHING planned for Friday night through Saturday. The only 2 things I wanted to do was 1. Find and fix the leak on my grill so we can grill. 2. Go to their school’s performance of Annie Saturday night. 

I got the grill leak fixed yesterday. 

Annie is tonight. 

My kids slept in today. Well, if you count 7:30 as sleeping in. Compared to their usual wake time of 6, it is. I even slept until 6:30. 

They have moved downstairs to start the day. I’m wrapping up to spend a blissful day doing very little with the munchkins. Have a great Saturday!