One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, Yellow Fish...
I fed our fish tonight, and sat down to watch them. It’s important to watch your fish periodically while they eat; you need to observe your fish at mealtime to ensure they’re all healthy and eating well. If one of your fish looks sick, it’s important to catch it early so you can begin planning what you want to replace it with because sick fish never recover.
Watching fish can also be a valuable stress-reliever. Seeing your fish peacefully swimming through the water and hunting down those mischievous flakes can help the day’s tension melt away. Listening to your twin boys destroy the house while you stare at the aquarium somewhat negates the effect. Watching your daughter pound on the aquarium glass effectively reverses the stress release.
Our pets don’t like our kids. The cats might never appear near them if the kids didn’t leave the back door open so they could escape the house. The dog tolerates them as long as they’re not raiding her food dish. The fish are mostly oblivious toward them, though their insistence on repeatedly pounding the glass may be instilling a Pavlovian run and hide response in the fish whenever someone under 4-foot tall wanders near the glass.
I instructed Abbie to not hit the glass, and she settled for simply pointing at the fish. She then said something semi-intelligible: “Fish (garbled word with a long ‘a’ sound).”
“Fish escape?” I guessed, thinking maybe she saw a fish flee behind a rock.
“No,” she replied.
“Fish cake?” Maybe she thought the fish were eating cake, much like we were eating cake after mommy’s birthday.
“No,” she replied, and continued staring intently. Whatever she saw was still there. I always try to repeat the things she says to me to encourage her speech, but this one was tricky. Ever since she started preschool, she’s been bringing home strange new words, almost as many words as strange germs. I have no idea where she gets some of these words, which makes guessing them difficult.
“Fish tank?” I tried.
“Fish (garbled word with a long ‘a’ sound),” she repeated.
She was pointing out the fish tank. With that mystery solved, and a little stress relieved, it was time to raise my stress levels and see what the boys scattered across the floor.
Watching fish can also be a valuable stress-reliever. Seeing your fish peacefully swimming through the water and hunting down those mischievous flakes can help the day’s tension melt away. Listening to your twin boys destroy the house while you stare at the aquarium somewhat negates the effect. Watching your daughter pound on the aquarium glass effectively reverses the stress release.
Our pets don’t like our kids. The cats might never appear near them if the kids didn’t leave the back door open so they could escape the house. The dog tolerates them as long as they’re not raiding her food dish. The fish are mostly oblivious toward them, though their insistence on repeatedly pounding the glass may be instilling a Pavlovian run and hide response in the fish whenever someone under 4-foot tall wanders near the glass.
I instructed Abbie to not hit the glass, and she settled for simply pointing at the fish. She then said something semi-intelligible: “Fish (garbled word with a long ‘a’ sound).”
“Fish escape?” I guessed, thinking maybe she saw a fish flee behind a rock.
“No,” she replied.
“Fish cake?” Maybe she thought the fish were eating cake, much like we were eating cake after mommy’s birthday.
“No,” she replied, and continued staring intently. Whatever she saw was still there. I always try to repeat the things she says to me to encourage her speech, but this one was tricky. Ever since she started preschool, she’s been bringing home strange new words, almost as many words as strange germs. I have no idea where she gets some of these words, which makes guessing them difficult.
“Fish tank?” I tried.
“Fish (garbled word with a long ‘a’ sound),” she repeated.
She was pointing out the fish tank. With that mystery solved, and a little stress relieved, it was time to raise my stress levels and see what the boys scattered across the floor.
posted by Matt at
11:56 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home