Poor Kid
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| Thu, 03-01-2007 - 6:06pm |
Victor lost his pet fish this morning. Rainbow the Fish was 2.5 years old and Victor was completely responsible for that fish. I wouldn't even change his water after showing Vic what he needed to do.
We had a good cry together about 10 min before time for school, I sent a note to his teacher for the just in case but evidently he had an awesome day at school. Poor kid tho, he gets home from school and Bryanna mentions "So you're not sad about Rainbow anymore?" and that was it. Now he's depressed again. We're going to go out to eat tonight and if I can swing it, I'm gonna go get him a lil toy for a great week at school. 4 smiley faces deserve a lil something but 4 smileys with a stressor like losing a pet is something to celebrate. I learned my lesson tho, if he forgets it again, don't mention it to him.
Alexis

Oh, poor (((Victor)))!
We haven't either in this household Evelyn lol, hubby always cleaned the cages of the hamsters, cus basically you bought them, I'm not doing it kinda thing from me lol.
But I remember when my boys hamsters died. Nicholas (my 7 yr old) was devasted so we buried him, and did a little funeral, while my older son didn't care, and just wanted us to throw the thing in the garbage.
My older son loved the hamster while he was alive, played with him and was very gentle, but just didn't want to deal with it after he was dead. You know, kinda concrete in away? Now that he's dead, its over.... lets move on....
I guess our kids show different things, and death and change are always hard to handle.
We haven't gotten that level of responsibility here either though we are working on it. They help clean the guinea pig cages but I have to monitor it. Cait finally was able to clean her small fish bowl but the big tank requires a bit more work so there are parts she does and parts I help with. They feed their own pets but often have to be reminded. (ok, emily doesn't).
We just had one of the guinea pigs die a couple weeks ago. It was Emily's and she was devestated. Fuzzy was a "special" pig. He had something neuro going on with him and we think he may have been having seizure or something. One day he was fine and an hour later he was dead. We now have a new piggy and quite a nice piggy cemetery in the back yard.
As for fish, we seem to kill them weekly and the girls still cry every darn time. Those regular tank fish just do that.
Cait had a Beta for 3 years that finally passed not long ago and she was totally heartbroken. We had to bury him as well.
Renee
well I should elaborate a bit. I told Victor that he'd have to do it on his own with his beta but I often reminded him before bed at snack time to feed his fish. Simple things like "Mom, I'm hungry." were responded to with "I'll bet Rainbow is hungry too." and that's all it took to get him to go feed his fish. He's matured a lot over the last year. Vic now realizes when he gets a reminder that he'd better go take care of whatever it was right then, or he'll forget it again.
We had Rainbow the Beta for 2.5 years. He lived a good long life considering he was overfed, then not fed, then our kitten liked to go fishing in the tank so Rainbow got a few heartattacks that way til he discovered the kitten knocks the lid into the bowl and he can hide under it.
Victor handled it very well and got a smiley with a party hat yesterday at school. He was sad this morning when it hit him that Rainbow wasn't in his room, but when he woke up, our older cat was sleeping at the foot of his bed and he thought that was kind of cool. All in all, I think we survived his first pet death.
Alexis
He did very well.
I learned after the fact that beta's are the kind of fish that are better when they are a bit neglected. When the bowl isn't too clean and it does them good to go a bit hungry now and again for a little bit.
NO WONDER our beta lived over 3 years! LOL. Cait took PERFECT care of her beta.
I should elaborate as well. Cait's pet care and Victor's sound about the same. When I tell Cait to feed the animals she usually does it right then because she knows she will forget. For about the last year of his life, she cleaned the Beta's bowl on her own (with monitoring) and prior to that we did it together and in the beginning I did it. I have finally gotten her to where she and Emily are sharing most of the fish tank care in her room now. Her and Emily share a 10 gallon tank with about 6 fish in it.
Renee
Edited 3/2/2007 6:12 pm ET by rbear4