Fish

Meet "Fish". This was Emma's valentines day present from Daddy. Yesterday I passed by Fish and she (she is a girl according to Emma...and she also talks) was laying on the bottom of her tank, struggling for life. Now a good mother would have taken care of the situation immediately. Being a bit overwhelmed with two and it being close to dinner time I pretended that I didn't see "Fish" in the hopes that Daddy would be the one in the room when Emma discovered the plight of her new pet. About twenty minutes later Emma was standing over the tank saying "What wrong with Fish Mommy?". Yikes. Ok, so how do you explain death to a two year old? I explained that it looked like Fish was dying and that Daddy would tell her what to do when he got home. Since she doesn't understand what dying means she looked at me and said "Can I get a blue one next?". Phew. No crisis. No sadness.

So John gets home and tells Emma that Fish is just sleeping and that when they sleep they need to be flushed down the toilet like in Nemo to go the ocean. He was appalled that I would bring up death to a two year old. How would we explain this to her? I started singing "It's the circle of life....." which was very helpful and said a few words for Fish. Emma didn't seem to care about either explanation so we will save any real conversation with her for the future and just get her a new blue fish.

Crisis averted.