Dad, the Goldfish Isn't Moving!

My well meaning father bought my 4 year old, Sophia, a lovely goldfish the week of Thanksgiving. The theory is that she'll be so preoccupied with her new pet that she wouldn't notice that her mom was super busy with her new baby brother. Thus Sophia Goose swam in a large vase on our coffee table. I thought my dad was also going to buy a little tank too. A vase was all we got.

Well, apparently a goldfish is not a very exciting pet. Ok, I already knew that. I had to remind Sophia Swan (since she's a swan, the goldfish is a goose, get it? Me neither.) to feed her fish every day. She wanted to feed it breakfast, lunch, dinner AND dessert. I'm still teaching her moderation.

Earlier this week my sister noticed that Sophia Goose was, well, just floating. Thankfully Sophia hadn't noticed it yet. Then one morning, on our way out the door, she said it. "Dad, my fish isn't moving."

Hubby and I looked at each other silently asking the other what we should say. He beat me to it. "It's just sleeping." To give him credit, we were walking out the door and it had already taken us 20 minutes to get Sophia to put on socks, shoes, coat, and a hat. We were on our way to the doctor. Jaxson had his one month doctor's appointment, and Sophia was getting 3 shots.

"Oh, I should feed it, " she says.

"Um, let's wait until it wakes up before we feed her," I jumped in. Whew! Crisis averted. If we had the time to deal with it the, I would have just told her.

Luckily she forgot all about it. Hubby remembered to bury it flush the evidence after she went to bed.

Thanks to all the hustle and bustle of Christmas, she has yet to notice that her goldfish is missing. Now here's my dilemma. Do I tell her outright that Sophia Goose died? Or do I wait for her to notice, then tell her? Or hide the evidence vase and forget all about it?

Either way, we're going to buy new fish.

An original DC Metro Moms post.

You might run into Thien-Kim at the pet store but you can also find her musings on parenting at I'm Not the Nanny and her recipes and crafting tutorials at Cup of Creativi-Tea.

Photo via protographer23