The Story of Peter

A year ago in October, we attended the fall festival fair at Niah's school. The girls had played the game of tossing a ball into bowls of water to win a guppy fish. Of course, they each won a fish. I wasn't too thrilled at the idea of having "pets" again, but the girls would have been very upset if we didn't take the fish home...SO on the way home, we stopped at Walmart to buy a one gallon fish tank for the 2 fish. By this time the girls had named their fish--Niah named hers Martin, and Aliya named hers Peter. I'm not sure exactly how they could tell the fish apart, but they could!

Niah bought the tank with her own money, and I paid for the other supplies. When we got home, we got the tank ready for the fish. The instructions said to let the water set for 24 hours before putting the fish in the tank. We left the tank on the kitchen counter and decided to wait until the next morning to put the fish in.

However, when we woke up the next morning, both Peter and Martin were belly side up! The girls were very upset--not only did they lose their new pets, but now they had an empty tank. I told the girls that we would go to Petsmart and buy some new fish.

Later that day we went to Petsmart. The store assistant informed us that we could either get a goldfish or a Beta fish, but we couldn't have any tropical fish because the small tank didn't have a filtering system in it.

I wasn't too fond of goldfish because the tanks seem to get too dirty too fast. We decided on the Beta fish, but as everyone knows, you can't put two male Beta fish in the same tank! That meant that only one of the girls would be replacing their lost fish. I decided that since Niah had spent her money to buy the tank, then the fish should be hers; therefore, Martin was chosen and we brought him home.

Aliya was sad that Peter was not coming home with us, but I told her that if she was good to Martin, then we would get another tank for Peter and bring Peter back home. She was a little sad, but the excitement of at least having one fish was enough to satisfy her for the time being.

We only had Martin for a few months when Aliya tried to "hold him". We weren't sure that he would survive, but he did. After that, Aliya never touched him again, and she actually did a good job reminding Niah to feed him. It wasn't until just a few weeks ago that we lost Martin after he took a swim in a hot bath.

Over the past year, Aliya would ask from time to time when could Peter come home. Every time we went to Petsmart for fish or turtle supplies, she would ask to look at Peter. Peter has been at the store all this time and now TJ and I have decided to bring Peter home for Aliya's birthday. We are going to get her a tank just like Niah's, and Kiahna is going to buy her a decorative rock to put in it.

We know that she is going to be very excited! Only a few more days and Peter will come home!

--Heidi