Sparkler

My sister gave Tanner a beautiful red and blue beta fish for his birthday last year. Being that it is on the 4th of July, the colors were perfect and he named it Sparkler. We were quite illiterate in the beta fish care so we did what we thought every fish needed.  Mom cleaned his tank (sparkly clean) and Lexie fed and fed and fed this cute little guy until, a few short weeks later, he died. This happened to have occurred on a Wednesday evening while Derek was out at mutual, so I sent him a text and told him to stop by Walmart and just pick up another beta fish.  (quick before Tanner sees!)

Isn't that how moms always are?  We just want to shelter the blow. Dads are the insightful ones.  They allow the suffering, but allow a teaching moment to occur. Well, the next morning Tanner went to feed his fish and found it floating in the bottom of its tank. He cried and cried and cried like I haven't seen him cry before. Ever.

We had a wonderful discussion about the Atonement and then we suggested that maybe we could check out some books at the library, get educated on how to care for them, then take the plunge and try again.

So, right away, we got the books. We discovered that mom cleaned the tank a little too obsessively, and well, Lexie was BANISHED from coming anywhere NEAR the tank.

A year later, we got up the nerve to try again. Tanner picked out another beautiful beta and things seemed to be going well. A week into the experience, Lexie received one from our neighbor. They were both thrilled to have their betas and were doing their so so best to take care of them. (In separate tanks of course.)

It didn't take dad long to get involved and before I knew it, he was changing the water and feeding the fish.  I eyed him warily as he did not read any of the books with us, but the chemist in him insisted he knew what he was doing.

Three weeks later, both betas died on the same day! This time no tears were shed. Just some sad faces and a lot of discouragement.  Honestly, (which translates to esthetically), I'm a bit relieved to not have fish tanks all over my house now. And going out of town won't be much of a problem. But I think if we muster up the courage to do another beta fish, we're going to have to educate dad a bit. It would be nice if it took us another year before we embraced this project again too.