The Christmas Nightmare

  Gavin wanted fish for Christmas.  3 fish to be precise.  He wanted them to keep Spot, the fish he currently owns, company.  So we bought him a big fish tank and on Christmas Eve Scott went to PETCO and bought him 3 more fish.  2 small sharkfish-y things and 1 sucker fish (UGLY btw...).  He put them, in their bowls, on the top shelf of our closet.  The plan was to transfer all 3 fish to Gavin's current fish tank after the kids went to bed.  Well, before we got a chance to do that, 1 of the sharkfish went belly-up.  OH NO I thought, this is NOOOOOO GOOD.  Remember this?  http://icantstoplaughing.blogspot.com/2009/06/rip-fish.html ).  Don't worry, said Scott.  We still have 2 fish...

  Gavin woke us up at 2 AM to tell us that Santa had brought him 2 fish!  Great...now go back to bed!  We got up around 7, went downstairs and the kids opened presents.  Gavin was so happy to find a new huge tank and some gravel for it.  Later that morning, Scott happened to go into Gav's room to check on the fish and found sharkfish #2 belly-up.  Mr. Sucker-fish (aka "Sucky") was not doing too well.  OH SHIT we thought.  So I called Gav upstairs so we could tell him.  He took it in stride so we thought, until I went downstairs and found him sobbing into the couch pillows.  My dad came over to bring some presents and food over for our dinner later and found poor pathetic crying Gavin.  He was inconsolable.  Sucky ended up sucking his last breath and getting flushed too.  It took us a few hours to get Gav calmed down.  Our family was warned not to even say the word "FISH" at all during dinner.  We promised him that come today, we'd go someplace other than PETCO and get some more fish. 

  Today we went to an actual fish store and bought Gav FOUR new fish (we felt bad after yesterday's tragedy), a tank heater and a large coral thing for the tank.  I am happy to report that all Sam, Sally, Sid, Sucky and Spot are happily swimming around their new home.  Toots the cat has been watching them very closely.  We hope that the fish will have a long long life in Gav's room and I won't have to blog about dead fish again!