Sleeping with the fishes...

Our adventure for today goes as such:

For those of you who have not read our Christmas Day entry yet, Jocey received a lovely little beta fish from Santa this year. She has lovingly named it "Fish." Original, I know. Well, Fish has not adapted to our surroundings yet. By that I mean he is not eating, he's been blowing bubbles on the surface of his tank, and doesn't swim very much.

I've had a few fish in my lifetime, so my first instinct is to buy some different food and clean out the tank. And I thought this would be a great opportunity for Jocey to help me and she'd get to see her fish up close. I brought the tank down to the kitchen, poured a little of the tank water into a container, got the fish out and let Jocey pull a chair up to the counter to watch.

I was in the middle of washing the tank and getting the gravel into a strainer, when out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jocey reach for something shiny. Then I heard her say, "Fish, cheese!" Then I watched, as in slow motion, the shiny thing went into the container with Fish. The shiny thing, to my horror, was my camera, totally submerged. I yelled in panic, pulled out the camera, Jocey started crying, I emptied the camera to get it dried out, and as Jocey went to her room, I muttered the usual choice words under my breath. I think a line from "Meet the Robinsons" actually came out of my mouth: "You're grounded, 'til you die!"

I learned a few valuable lessons today - 2 year olds can't avoid shiny things, 2 year olds can't help clean fish, and cameras indeed will sink when submerged in water. Yes, Jocey got in trouble, but in truth, I blame myself as well. Crap. I hate having a conscience. The fish survived, but we still have yet to see if the camera did. Quite literally, my camera is now sleeping with the fish.