Fish death

The fish just keep dying.

Anna has an aquarium in her room that was a birthday present a few years back. It was born out of her desire for "something alive" in her room (never mind the fact that we have 5 cats.) I nixed all talk of rabbits and guinea pigs and chinchilas and what not. I was NOT interested in cleaning up after one of those - litter boxes are already bad enough. So we settled on fish. We had fish growing up and my mom has a tank now.

One of the things I remember my dad saying to us as kids regarding fish tanks was "don't get attached to fish." They are, after all, the lowest form of vertebrate life on the planet. The ones living in her aquarium have a brain the size of a hangnail. Still, when we first started with fish, we named them and everything. My dad would just shake his head and repeat his mantra "don't get attached to fish."

Those of you that know Anna know that she gets attached to everything. Her first two goldfish that she had were named Kiki and Fifi. With the clear memory of my father's mantra in my head, I reminded Anna that fish were fragile creatures and not to be disappointed if they died. To our utter amazement, they lived for nearly a year. But then the great fish die off began. Replacement fish lasted a month at best. We switched to tetras and glowfish and one by one, they croaked too. It wouldn't be so bad except Anna gives them all these cute little names. Strawberry and Silvermist and Popcorn and Chocolate Chip and Fred. That's right, Fred. Fred and Al were both algae eaters. Both gone to the great fish beyond.

I got an e-mail from Heidi on Saturday night when I was in Kansas City about the death of Popcorn. Popcorn was a guppy that was yellow with little black speckles. He had just been purchased the day before and could have been returned to Petsmart, but heartbroken Anna wanted to bury him. Both algae eaters bit the dust last night - a fact I discovered when I came up to find Anna despondent and crying in her bedroom. Tonight, another glowfish had died. He was up against the filter and I don't even know what his name was.

Anna keeps this list on the back of her door. I know that I am overly sentimental about my child, but it breaks my heart.


I think I could handle fish death if it weren't for the cute names and the ever lengthening list of casualties. But I know that's how she's dealing with it. She told me once that it's how she remembers them, which I suppose is fair. It's just another example of how, as a parent, you want to shield your child from all pain. It's not only impossible, it's fucking stupid. I always say that if I had just learned how to deal with some of the shit I am learning to deal with now at an earlier age, it would have been SO much easier.

But for now, I would like the fish to stop dying. Pretty please?

(image via)

Woolly bully

This fall has seen what can only be described as the Drama of the Woolly Bear. It's funny that such a thing can cause the drama that it has, for I had never even heard of woolly bear caterpillars prior to this fall. A couple weeks back, Anna found a woolly bear caterpillar in our yard. She brought it into the house and put it in a clear plastic box with some leaves, a few sticks and some grass and christened him "Woolly." It was no a super secure box and she did insist on taking it out of the box to let it crawl on her finger. Within the first 24 hours of captivity, it had escaped and after a massive search, it was located. However, on Halloween night, Anna was up until nearly midnight because of our Halloween party. The next morning, we found the box upended and the caterpillar gone, likely the result of her manic over-tiredness the night before (as in, she had likely inadvertently knocked the box over and didn't realize it.)

There were a large number of tears shed on that Saturday and especially that Saturday night, despite all our efforts to spin it in to something like "the woolly bear is meant to be outside," "he is probably going to hibernate" or other such platitudes. So the following Sunday, Anna and I went out to Ada Hayden Heritage Park here in Ames on the hunt for another woolly bear caterpillar. The first one we found was a dead one, but it didn't take long before we found one, and then another and another. We only kept the one, which Anna named Claire and we got a much sturdier container for this one.

I did some investigation on the internet and found out that you could keep them through the winter (they go into a hibernation state) and then in the spring, the caterpillars pupate and become Isabella tiger moths in the early spring. I thought, what the heck? Let's try it.

So yesterday, we put potting soil in the bottom of the container, some new leaves and a few new sticks as well. Anna decided that yesterday was the day to put the woolly bear, container and all, on the porch and let it hibernate for the winter.

I did not think much of it at first, but the more the day wore on, the more I questioned that decision. I was laying in bed last night trying (in vain) to sleep and couldn't help but think that perhaps we had killed the woolly bear by putting it on the porch so soon. All I could think of was the heartbreak that Anna would feel on the death of this, the second woolly bear. So Heidi and I brought it in and tried to find it. We thought we had found it, but this morning, on closer inspection, what we thought was it was not it. I looked around in the cage this morning and found it, but I'm not sure that it's still living. I am no goddamn entomologist, so it could be hibernating and just non-responsive, but I think I am going to have to put the cage back on the porch this morning and not mention a word of the whole thing to Anna.

I realize that it's stupid to pin my success or failure as a father on the survival of this caterpillar. It is the ultimate in ridiculous and surely there will be more traumatic things that she will confront sooner rather than later. There would be those that would look at me with disdain and shake their heads and say "it's just a caterpillar!" but those people do not know my daughter's tender heart. If this caterpillar does not survive till the spring to become a beautiful moth, she will be crushed. Momentarily, yes and she will not likely need therapy for it, but it will hurt her. She is not one of those kids that will forget about something like this. I fear that she will pin her hopes on that caterpillar all winter and if it does not emerge in the spring, we will have many tearful days and even more tearful evenings. A part of me regrets even telling her that the possibility to keep the caterpillar over the winter even existed.

I think the Drama of the Woolly Bear speaks to larger insecurities I have as a parent, not ever sure if the decisions I am making are the right ones, being pissed at myself when I am short with her and realizing that she will not be little forever and there will come a day in the not-too-far-off future that she will not want to be with me at all. It also speaks to the part of me (that I think exists in every parent) that wants to shield her from all of life's disappointments, even though intellectually, I realize that's not only impossible but also mind bogglingly stupid. If I protect her from everything in life, what will she do when I am no longer around to protect her? It's the fine line between doing your job as a parent and being their advocate while also allowing them to live their life. That line is nebulous and moves around a lot, but it's still our job to keep an eye on it.

I wonder if all parents feel this way to some degree. I know when I was a kid, I would watch my parents and they just knew everything. Now, I realize they were probably doing something not all that dissimilar from what I am doing now - the best I can and hope it all works out.

I guess for all those moments of frustration that I wonder where my daughter gets her tender heart, I need look no further than these pages. But there are certainly worse things to pass on.