our betta fish

mikey turned 3 october 25th. he loves animals and wants a dog so bad - he'd probably want a cat too, but mike and i are NOT cat people.  since we're living with my parents right now, dogs are not an option.  i had a brilliant idea! let's get him a fish, his first pet, that way he can feed it and work on learning the responsibility of caring for a living thing.

so the saturday after his birthday we took the kids to the pet store and asked some questions.  the girl suggested betta fish, and also informed us that you can't put two betta fish together in one tank because they will fight.  (i had also done some reading about fish and knew a little about this.) mikey chose his fish, a female betta, which is much smaller and less flowy fins than the look of the male betta.  we selected a tank that had a divider specifically so that you could keep two betta in the same tank! how fun! so mike picked out a second fish (for zach), he chose a male with big flowy fins.

we got our accessories and asked some questions and took them home to set up the tank.  there are various opinions about sticking the fish right in the tank or letting the water sit 24 hours, so we chose to let the water sit.  (we also had trouble with the first tank being scratched so it wasn't even until sunday that we had the new tank - so this process was a few days coming). so, we finally got them into the tank on oct 29th.

oct 30th mikey was saying good morning to the fish and told me he did not see the boy.  there's a submarine accessory in the tank so i figured he was inside it, but i also did not see him.  i looked down and it turned out he had jumped out of a tiny hole in the back of the tank! we thought he was dead but luckily he was still alive and i was able to get him into the small cup he was in at the pet store! later mike put him back in his side of the tank and covered the back part with some plastic wrap (not tightly, but in a way that we didn't think he would be able to jump out again).

nov 2nd as i came into the kitchen to give the kids breakfast, i realized that the boy fish was in the girl's side of the tank!!! he swam around tormenting her for a while and then i finally got brave enough to get him out (we have a net, but i was afraid of him jumping at me when i opened the cover lol).  he has been in his cup since then.  

today i noticed the female looks awfully plump around the mid-section!!! i will be doing some serious research during nap time today!!! 

who knew getting two little betta fish for my 3 year old could be so exciting! and crazy! the pollie family's first pets! <3