Ty's New Pets

The boy seriously loves animals. He loves to color pictures of animals, collect stuffed animals, and he can just sit and watch animals for hours. Trips to the zoo can last a long time, he still runs everywhere but once he gets where he's going dragging him away from the exhibit that he's at can seem impossible. Ty has been begging us for a pet of "his own". Apparently the two labs and the bunny we have aren't enough to please him. In his own words: "I want one that I take care of." We all know how that usually turns out. Did I mention he's had hamsters before....... let me remind with this and this...ahh the early days of my blog....okay back to today, or yesterday actually. Well, he's been asking for a lizard, or a bird, or a snake, or a spider. I told him straight up that there was NO WAY that DAD would let him have a snake or a spider, I would actually be fine with that. Ben ruled out the bird, twice the mess of the hamsters and a 100 times the noise. He said that Ty could have a lizard and I asked him if he knew how much work lizards really were.

Finally, Ty and I decided on fish. He was so excited. We grabbed a 10 gallon tank starter kit. Then we went crazy. Rocks for the bottom of course. Toys for the fish to swim in and around including a bubbling Volcano, Ty wanted the 12" version, I talked him into the 6". Along with the Volcano came the air pump, which is really quiet until you put the air hose on there. Then there were the live plants for the fish to hide in and nibble on. And also food for Ty to sprinkle twice daily. Then came the fish. Two algae eaters, three yellow guppies, and two mollies later, one white the other black with white speckles, we were ready to roll.

We got home and I proceeded to set up the tank like the fish pro that I am. No really, I've had fish a few times before. The lady at Petsmart wanted to hire me when I started telling Ty that the fish he was pointing at would eat the fish he had already picked out. About an hour and a half later with lots of kid help, we had the fish swimming happily in their new tank. Ty fed them and went to bed. He later came downstairs to tell me that he took a picture of "Snowy" with my camera....picture coming later. And all of the fish have names, I'll have to write them down.

This morning when I went to wake him he popped right out of bed ready to feed his fish again.

We did set some ground rules:

No touching fish.
No putting hands in the tank.
No putting toys in the tank.
Leave the fish in the tank.
No feeding without mommy there to help until show her you have learned the right amount of food to dole out. (I didn't use the word "dole" with my six year old)
Leave the lid on the tank. (I had a jumping, suicidal goldfish who never actually died but we found on the floor after being out of the water for an undetermined amount of time, but long enough to stop flopping)

I know, I took all of the fun out of it.

It was nice just sitting with him on the floor of his room this morning watching the fish eat and snuggling with my boy for a few minutes. Did I mention that's where we put the tank? CRAZY, I know. We'll probably get more of that in this afternoon. And a few pictures to bring with me tomorrow. :)