Why Did I Have the Bowl?

So a few weeks ago, Gus was really a handful for about a week when GJ was visiting. Amy & I think it was because he was used to the grandparents giving him his share of attention without having to share it with his sister. One day at a pumpkin patch he ran away from Amy and nearly ran out on the highway into oncoming traffic. Needless to say there was a heart-to-heart that night with two parents and a certain three year-old.

Owen, on the other hand, had been very good during that period so we decided to reward him with a fish (and by not getting Gus one we hoped that denying him a reward would teach him a lesson about listening).

Owen was all about his fish. For about a day. After a couple of days it came time to change the water in the little bowl. So I had set some water out to get to room temperature. I placed the bowl cleaning solution by the pitcher of water and Amy was going to change the water later that day.

The problem was that Amy thought I had already put the drops in the water. So she changed out the water, and you know where this is going....

Owen's little betta fish lived 3 days before going belly-up and getting flushed down the toilet. Amy & I were then faced with a dilemma: Do we try to replace the fish with another one that looks just like it before Owen notices? Do we use this opportunity to teach a 3 year-old about dying? Or do we just put the bowl up on top of the refrigerator and hope he doesn't mention the fish again?

Of course we picked the easy route. So far Owen has only mentioned feeding the fish one time and changing the water maybe once. But other than that, the kid is focused on the bag of Halloween candy that is still sitting on top of the fridge.