Fish emergency

My day started out awesome.    breakfast, teeth brushing, all that morning stuff…    I was doing schoolwork with Isaac (yes we do some school in the summer)  when I thought, hmmm I wonder what Sammi is doing?   Not thirty seconds later, I hear a screech from Shiloh ” MOM!! Sammi dumped ALL the fish food in the tank!”   yeah.     My great morning turned into a scramble to save a bunch of goldfish from eating themselves to death.    I would love to write here that everything went smoothly.  The kids were well behaved, I didn’t have to yell to get everyone from crowding around the tank and almost knocking me into it.   I didn’t banish them all to the living room and let them turn on the TV.  They didnt get into a fight about what show to watch, and try to get me to referee. And I didn’t yell ” just stop it I have lives to save here!!  figure it out on your own!”  but that would be a lie.       I spent the next hour scooping fish food out of the tank, and all the fish survived.    Yes, I prayed for them.    I had no idea I was so fond of the fish actually.  If you think about it, a pet fish is really kind of strange… stranger than a cat.  At least cats return affection sometimes, and like to cuddle.  Fish just swim around, eat, and poop..  My favorite of all is our sucker fish that the kids named “toothless trappy” because he looks like toothless from how to train your dragon, and trappy is the name of a t-rex we are all fond of (long story).   He and I are kindred spirits really. We both spend most of our lives cleaning up after small beings.  He keeps the tank nice and clean. I can’t say the same for my house though.   I’m pretty sure the fish all hate me now, because every time I go past the tank they all cluster together at the back like I’m some crazy lady that stole a buffet from  them, caught them in a net and made them hang out in a stainless steel bowl for an hour.

My day was improved upon  by running to the store for a list of random household items we ran out of (that now included fish food).       We may not have much down smoothly with all four kids and just me, but going to the store is something we rock.   We go over the list of things we don’t do in the store before we get out of the car.  “don’t ask for anything. don’t dance in the isle, you might get run over.  stay with the cart. don’t ride on the cart.      I then proudly parade a line of usually orderly little humans in a line down the parking lot.  (We mostly get kindly looks from old ladies, but there is the occasional look of horror).   This time we paraded past some tourists on their way into the store.  They told my kids they were all SO CUTE!    my kids said thank you.  They asked if they were always well behaved for mommy.   Shiloh said “some of the time”.   the tourists praised her for honesty, right before Isaac yelled out that he is ALWAYS good.. LOL.       We made it through the store without issues, and I avoided the usual scramble over who gets the receipt by letting one kid put the money in the automatic checkout while another one got the receipt.    We happened to be leaving Walmart at the same time as the tourist couple from the parking lot. and the man said “so we meet again!”         My kids proceeded to have a farewell match as long as voices  could be heard, going back and forth shouting  out farewells  in various languages with this random but very nice stranger.

Poor homeschool kids.  They just aren’t socialized enough.