Big News

What an exciting week! Full of big happenings and big news. Ok, STOP. Do you seriously think I'm knocked up? Enough. I'm not. Move on.

This week has been a week of milestones. Ben has officially stopped peeing in his sleep. Wa-hoo! Now if we can just convince him that he really doesn't need to wear a pull-up at night. It's not required. Really, he can just wear underwear. This seems completely crazy to him and we continue to have long conversations about it each night at bedtime that end in me sighing and giving in to a pull-up.

Second milestone of the week: Ben has a "real" pet. He informed me on Monday that he was very sad because he didn't have a pet. "What about those two hairy smelly things that wander our house eating your snacks," I asked. Nope. Those things? Those are "yours and Daddy's pets." I stand corrected. What he really needed, he lamented, was a pet of his very own. Better yet, two pets. Maybe dogs. Nope? Not giving in? Well, how about fish? Well played, Little Man. Start with something so outrageous that even you know it's not going to happen. Then, slide in something that, by contrast, seems not only reasonable, but maybe even a GOOD idea.

Tuesday after school, we trudged to the pet store and Ben chose two of the most beautiful 12-cent "feeder" goldfish he could find. ("Feeder" as in they the goldfish they FEED to the real fish.) We got the tank all ready and introduced the guys (gals? how do you tell?) to their new home.

Their names, you ask? Well, we went through several naming cycles. When he first mentioned getting fish, he only wanted one and he was going to name it Barack Obama (can you tell who Mommy and Daddy might be supporting in our upcoming election?). Then, he realized, hey-- one fish is great, but two is better. He thought "Harper's Best Friend" and "Abby's Best Friend" were perfect names. But, when it came down to it, that's far too much to say when you are giving fish a verbal instruction, so he settled on "Baseball" and "Team." You know... Baseball Team.

"Baseball" is all orange, "Team" has a black stripe

Ben spent the next hour sitting on the floor watching them swim around. About every 5 minutes, he'd climb up by the tank, hug it and then flick the lights on and off.. on and off... on and off... (only really quickly). I mentioned that the poor fish were going to have seizures and that I didn't know fishy-CPR, so he should lay off the light show.

There may have been something to that seizure thing because Friday morning, I went over to the tank and found that Baseball was, ummm, "out of the park". Before Ben woke up, Don and I said a few kind words about good ol' Baseball and sent him to his final resting place.

All day I waited for Ben to notice that "Team" was without a sport. I silently practiced all sorts of scenarios for where he had gone..... Baseball camp? SCHOOL (get it?)? That "Baseball" was really a secret agent and had been called away on a top secret mission to the toilet? That he had joined the "Disney on Ice" production of Finding Nemo? The kid never asked.

So, here it is Saturday night and another day has gone by without Ben noticing that one of his beloved pets is gone. Man, I'm glad we didn't decide to buy him a little brother or sister.