This December marks two years since Little Blue came to live with us after a very festive (and surprising) game of White Elephant with the Peaden Family. I'll admit to being resistant at first, but Little Blue and I have developed a fond relationship with each other. For her birthday this year, I sang her a little happy birthday song while I changed her tank water and took a few pictures with a plan to post on instagram.
Not even an hour later Lydia started calling for me and ran upstairs telling me that Caleb had gotten into her fish food and had dumped the whole thing in her bowl. (Happy Birthday to Little Blue from Caleb.) I was a little panicked because I knew if she ate too much it could kill her and I really really didn't want her to die on her birthday! I was trying to scoop the food out, but it was sinking too fast - when Lydia suggested that we pull her out and put her into a different bowl. Brilliant! So we dumped some uncontaminated water in a bowl and scooped her into it. I felt much relieved but I had JUST cleaned her tank, which meant that I didn't have any water to refill her tank. (I used to buy special water at the store to dump into her tank, but I learned that if you fill a water pitcher the night before and allow all of the chlorine to evaporate, then you can use that water to replace the fish tank water.)
I decided to just let her sit on the counter in her little bowl overnight so that we'd have fresh water for her. But, it seems that Little Blue was looking for some more excitement on her birthday because I came down later that evening and saw little blue ON THE COUNTER instead of in the bowl. She had jumped out! I shrieked and ran over to her, picked her up with my fingers and put her back in her bowl of water - thinking the whole time that I had no idea how long she'd been out. Thankfully she just started swimming like nothing had even happened! After that, I learned my lesson and I put a splatter guard on top of the bowl to keep her from jumping out.
Whew. Little Blue - that was quite the adventurous birthday you had! We're glad you're still alive and that you belong to us. Happy Birthday!
**Update: A few weeks after this happened, Lydia and Austin were trying some balloons from the cupboard over Little Blue's fishbowl and accidentally knocked something into it (they said he hit his elbow on it but I think they knocked something else into it) and cracked the whole bowl. The water wasn't leaking, but it looked pretty dangerous - so we moved Little Blue out (into a safe container because we learned our lesson last time) and ended up buying her a new fishbowl. Hope you enjoy your new digs Little Blue!
(Things have been a little exciting regarding Little Blue around here, but I hope that 2020 continues our regularly semi-boring routine of me feeding her every other day and changing her water once every other week and only the occasional child coming to watch her swim in between.)
