Go Fish

For a few months, Maui has been begging for a dog. And as much as Jason and I do love dogs, we're really not ready for that kind of commitment. Maybe in a couple of more years, Hun.

So we decided to take baby steps with the idea of having a pet around. We pitched the idea of getting a fish to Maui, and she was delighted. Today, I brought her to Petco, and she picked out a Betta (the guy working at the fish department assured me this was the easiest fish to take care of).

I grew up in a family of dog-lovers. I could say that I feel comfortable caring for such a challenging animal. But a fish, I am totally clueless about! Every year, my two sisters and one brother (our parents had four kids in five years, they're nuts =P) would each win a gold fish at our school fair. We would bring them home, and put them in one of my mother's glass fruit punch bowls. We would fill the bowl with tap water and feed the fishes bread crumbs! Poor, poor fishies. They would only live for two days =[.

Maui's new Betta that she had named Bubbles (nickname Bubz), has given me a bit of a scare. I had no idea that fish slept! It does, however, make sense. They are living creatures like us. Anyway, I saw the fish lounging motionless in the middle of our tank and started to freak out. I tapped the glass lightly and Bubz moved around a little. I felt kind of bad that I disrupted his sleep. From that point, I researched online ways to differentiate a fish sleeping from a fish that has died. Lounging motionless with gills flapping = asleep. Floating in the top of the tank or laying in the bottom without flapping gills = dead.

Good to know!