Annika has been asking for a pet for...well, ever since she could talk. She wants a dog (they all do, don't they?), but i told her we can barely take care of her and her brother. She did admit, "Dogs are a lot of responsibility. I learned that on a TV show."I have been thinking for a while that Annika deserves a pet of some sort. She's a nurturing person, a sweet soul and a good girl. Maybe some sort of low maintenance pet is in order?
The price she had to pay was to not whine for 24 hours. I know...easier said than done. In fact, she failed 4 times before the magic day. (I think it also somewhat cured her whininess...she does it a lot less now, which was really the point.) I said she could have a toy or a fish if she managed to abstain from whining for a day. She chose the fish.
We got a 2.5 gallon tank, set it up. Waited a day to make sure the tank was up to temperature and the filter was working. She & Daddy went the next night to pick out a fish which took her a while to decide on...she went from frog to some small white fish thing to a goldfish and finally settled on a molly. The molly's name is Molly and she is yellow and quite cute.
Molly's first night in the tank was rough. She tended to stay at the top part of the tank and seemed to be breathing heavily. We explained to Annika that fish have pretty short life spans and though we would do our best to keep her healthy, sometimes fish don't make it. Annika was ok with that though told us she was already very "attached" to Molly and would "never want to let her go."
Day 2, Molly was fed for the first time and ate like a champ. She was swimming throughout the tank and looked great. To celebrate, Annika and Daddy went for ice cream! Yay!
I watched Molly with a relatively grumpy Declan who rather enjoys the tank. Something else was swimming in that tank. A tiny Molly. Molly had a baby!
I texted Chris. I ran to the Interwebs...what do I do?? Will Molly eat her baby? Does the baby need a special tank? Special food? Turns out Molly might in fact eat her little guy, so I camped out in front of the tank until Chris got home because well, he knows everything. As I stared at the tank, I realized...Molly had two babies...twins!!!
Annika and Chris got home and I asked Chris if he told Annika. (He had not). I told Chris that we have to separate those babies, and he said...let's let nature take its course. Look, I am no environmentalist, nor am I particuarly a friend to the animal kingdom, but I just really felt that we had taken Molly into our home and it was our duty to take care of her babies as best we could. I knew we couldn't guarantee their survival, but I wanted to at least try.
We showed Annika the twins and she was shocked. She was so excited but we told her there was a chance the momma could eat her babies. She took that rather well...weird. Anyway, Chris started calling all the pet stores in the area to find out what they had to separate the babies, and after 15 minutes of calls, found a store that had something. He left. Annika and I watched Molly and the twins for a while until we got bored. (Sorry twins!)
While Chris was out, I asked Annika what she wanted to name the twins - she said "Skipper, Fishy and Mo." I said - well, that's three names. She said "OK, only Mo if there's another baby." Turns out she's quite prescient.
Chris came home with the contraption to separate the babies and as he fiddled around with it...he found some more babies. Four more. So now they are sextuplets. Their names are Skipper, Fishy, Mo, Jacker, Spirit and Sugar. Annika rattled them off as if she had known them her whole life. And now we are a family of 10.
Addendum: I couldn't find Sugar this morning.
