Yesterday the Sunday School in our church organised an outing to the Fish Farm in Pasir Ris for all the toddlers. The excursion lasted from 8.30am to 12.30pm and other than a guided tour within the farm, the kids got to catch fishes with nets and feed the fishes. They also had a small farm with ducks, rabbits, chickens and dogs. (At least those were the animals that Caleb told me he saw at the farm. I'm really not sure whether he saw ALL these animals coz he told me the rabbits that he saw, some were white and some were yellow in colour. Yellow rabbits??? Hmm....I should give him the benefit of doubt right? Me, the naughty Mummy, tried to trick him by asking whether he saw Rhinos, Giraffes and Lions at the farm and he said no very confidently so... maybe he saw white rabbits that were a little dirty and he thought they were yellow???)
Anyway, we thought it'll be fun for Caleb to go visit the fish farm coz we've never brought him to one, (and of course part of the deal was that we got a break from looking after him...) so we had a lot of "motivation" to sign the consent form to let him go. Actually most of the other parents in our cg also sent their kids off to the excursion and we were very gleeful coz we all had 1 kid less to handle and straight after service, we very excitedly discussed and executed our plan to go eat a nice breakfast together.
Ok, I'm digressing...Anyway, the Sunday school teacher told us that Caleb enjoyed himself tremendously when we picked him up. I'm not surprised he had a good time coz I was told he had ice cream during the visit and he got to bring home a bag of fishes which he caught, a fishing net and a little water bucket. He must have expanded a lot of energies at the fish farm coz he was flat out during the short drive home and he slept for 3 hours without eating lunch.
Actually, what really surprised me was that he got to bring home a bag of fishes. Well, we're really not equipped to rear fishes at home. I don't even have a fish tank. The closest thing I have was an Ikea glass jar that's meant to hold cookies! When I saw the fishes, I knew in my heart that they probably wouldn't survive 1 week in our household. Auntie Corrine from our cg told us well, these small fishes are actually reared as food for the bigger fishes anyway... so, whatever it is... they're going to die... just how right? So, I thought, well, we'll try really hard to care for them and keep them alive as long as we can. It's a great opportunity for Caleb to learn how to care for the fishes and learn to take on responsibilities. Besides, he's really quite excited and fascinated with the fishes. When I asked him how he caught them, he was very animated and demonstrated with lots of arm gestures with the fishing net.
I remembered that my mum had a glass bowl that can hold fishes (ok, actually I think it's a bowl meant for decorative purposes but still, it's bigger than my cookie jar...) so I went to borrow my mum's glass bowl. The fishes came with care instructions which I tried to follow and we transferred the fishes from the plastic bag to the bowl.
Ta-da! See, here's the fishes sitting on my coffee table in our living room. We don't really have a very clear pix of the fishes coz they kept swimming around. There's 11 fishes in different varieties of orange and 1 black one that looked pregnant to me. Me and Daddy noticed two really teeny weeny ones before going to bed. They looked newborn to me but alas, they were gone this morning. I half suspect they got eaten up by the bigger fishes. Think I need to separate the black one from the rest, just in case it's really having babies.
So far Caleb has been
Perhaps the fishes have been greatly traumatised to find themselves held captive in the Lee household coz before I went to bed, I walked into the living room and discovered to my horror, one of the fishes lying motionless 1m away from the glass bowl. An escapee! (Great! Now look who's traumatising who!) I didn't realise it, but I actually felt really squirmy with the thought of having to pick up the dead fish. (I'm not trying to be a ninny here but everybody's entitled to have their little fears ok. I'm ok cleaning up fishes for the dinner table but somehow, picking up tiny dead fishes in the middle of my living room is really not my cup of tea!) Anyway, a Mummy's got to do what a Mummy's got to do... so I braced myself, took a piece of newspapers and tried to flip the fish up and what do you know... the "dead" fish actually jumped at me when I did that and it landed, stuck to the newspaper. I think it has been out of the water for quite a while already coz it's body was really drying up and for 1min, I stood there with the fish stuck to the newspaper deliberating what I should do with it. I mean, it's looks like it's almost dead. Other than that jump, it was really motionless! Should I throw it in the dustbin or back in the bowl? Well, me being all compassionate and sensitive, couldn't bear the thought of the fish slowly meeting it's end in my dustbin, gasping for air...(yes, it'll make me feel like I've really killed the fish!) ... so I threw it back in the bowl. It struggled for a while, swam upside down for a while and hey! what do you know! It's a survivor and started swimming like a normal fish again! Anyway, that episode was enough to greatly traumatise me so I went to the room and told Daddy that the next time I see a fish lying on the floor again, I'm not picking it up! It's the man's turn to have a go at it!
With this fish episode, I've come to realise that we're really not into keeping pets. They're nice to look at and touch for a short while but the commitment to change their water everyday, feed them, deal with them dying on you (this is the worst part...) is really not a lot of fun. Perhaps when Caleb is older and ready to take on the full responsibilities of caring for his pets, he can keep them at home. But as of now, it's me the Mummy, who really stuck with all the responsibilities!
