Guess who’s back…back again! I am back…tell a friend 🙂 Well hello strangers!!! A number of you have asked where in the world did I go?! I didn’t go anywhere. We have been enjoying the summer weather and going on mini-family vacations. That should be a whole series of blog posts…family vacations…

Our two boys have kept us very busy this summer. The 3 year-old has non-stop energy and our 9 month old is mobile…climbing stairs, opening every cabinet and drawer that isn’t for him, eating everything insight (which includes trying to eat dog food). Whoops. Don’t worry we stopped him before he actually ate the dog food.

Summer has been filled with parades, grilling out, outdoor soccer, trips to the park, beaches and splash pads, and local festivals. We’ve learned that parades and local fairs are a kids D.R.E.A.M. And a parent’s nightmare, as we just throw away money. Ok I am being a little dramatic, but between tickets for rides, footlong corndogs (didn’t know that was even a thing), and $5 a game, you drop a lot of money at these fairs.

Yesterday we met some friends for a toddler playdate. I had suggested meeting at the fair as I thought it was perfect for the boys to get their energy out. Plus I am a sucker for craft fairs and I really wanted to go. Of course I never got a chance to go to the craft fair.

The boys went through their tickets at a good pace. Once their tickets ran out, they realized there were fair games. $5 a game and you could win stuffed animals, blow-up swords, etc. I tried everything to avoid the games. I thought…”Like we need one more toy?”

As we tried to find a game that was doable for a 3 year-old we stumbled upon the goldfish game. $5 got you a bucket of balls to try to win a goldfish. I learned yesterday that my husband never had fish growing up. I however, had my fair share of fish. My siblings did as well. And we were very well versed in fair goldfish. AKA they don’t live long.

My husband was as giddy as the kids when it came to the goldfish game. I reminded him of two vivid childhood fish experiences. The first was when I was 5 years-old. I had won a Beta fish at a fair. It’s name was Ariel because she was red and I was obsessed with The Little Mermaid.

I left for school one day and Arial was red, when I came home, she was blue. My mom had told me Beta fish change colors. As an adult, I can 100% call bullshit. My fish died while I was at school and my mom went to the store to get a new one. The store only had a blue Beta fish, so that’s what she bought.

The second vivid fish story was my younger brother came home with 12 goldfish that he had proudly won at a fair. Being 9 years older than him, I knew this had disaster written all over it. The next morning more than half of them were floating belly up in a bowl. AWESOME.

While I reminded my husband of these stories, he wanted to play the damn goldfish game. The 3 year-olds were throwing the balls and missing every time. It was great. Then my husband decided to grab two of the balls. First shot…missed. Second shot…in the bowl. Our son was so excited. I looked at my husband and said, “Seriously?!”

We watched the young woman scoop up a goldfish from the large tank. As she tried to put him in the bag, she dropped him on the table. I looked at my husband and said, “Perfect. This thing is going to die.” My husband responded, “It’s ok if it dies. It will be a good life lesson for our son.” I rolled my eyes and said, “Yeah…okay.”

Our son named the fish Nemo. Original, I know. We called my mom on the way home to tell her our son now had a pet fish. As we were driving home, the bag Nemo was in sprung a leak and started leaking all over. I was worried the fish wasn’t going to live to see our house.

An hour after getting home, my mom came over with a fish tank and all the fish swag you need. It was clear we were now in the fish pet business. Great….

We set the fish tank up in our son’s room. Nemo adjusted to his home quickly. We ate dinner and got the boys ready for bed. I went to check on Nemo before putting our sons to bed and Nemo was no longer swimming. SHIT. He was lodged in one of the decorations (picture in blog post). Thankfully the fish wasn’t belly up at the top of the tank…but he was still dead.

Our 3 year-old was right behind me and said, “Mommy why isn’t Nemo moving?!” All I could think of was, “He’s sleeping…I need to go talk to your dad.”

I ran downstairs to tell my husband. I said, “Remember when you said if the fish died it would be a good life lesson for our toddler? Well lesson is here and I said the fish was sleeping.” My husband asked, “Nemo is dead?” I told him yes and you need to go buy a new goldfish pronto.

My husband got a new goldfish for 39 cents…way cheaper than the $5 we spent at the fair. Today our son woke up asking where was his fish?! We had removed Nemo 1.0 while he was sleeping and figured we should wait to put Nemo 2.0 in. I told him we moved Nemo to a different bowl just for the first night. He bought it. Whew!

Nemo 2.0 is holding up longer than Nemo 1.0. Knock on wood. We are heading on a week long vacation in a few days…perfect timing to get a new fish. Clearly we didn’t think that one through. Not sure what we are going to do while we are on vacation with Nemo 2.0. It’s not like we can send him to the kennel with our dogs….