For all those who come to this happy place, Welcome!

Na na na na ... na na na na - hey hey hey Goodbye! We bid farewell to our disease carrying rats! It was hard for Paige to say goodbye. She was attached to these little stinkers and woke up the morning after they left us with tears in her eyes. She knows it is for the best, but lately we've had a really crappy track record with household pets. I think we might be in the "dog only" category . This is the reason they are gone. James developed this red patch on the back of his head in the early part of June. His hair fell out and we took him into the dermatologist. He said he needed to run some tests and gave us a topical ointment for other stuff. A week later his lymph nodes got huge and he went through a miserable weekend with a temperature, I assumed it was a flu bug or sinus infection. I took him to the pediatrician and she said he had picked up a bacteria & a fungus and started him on antibiotics for 10 days & a fungal treatment that would last 3 months. Th...

So this actually took place on May 2 nd and keep in mind that this was after the replacement fish "Sunny" died... But on this morning James came running into the computer room where I was effectively neglecting him and told me "Mom, Snow White's dead" and then made his dead fish face. (he kills me) I went & looked & she really was dead. Why do we have such crappy luck with pets? I called Jason and he said that he would stop on the way home from work & buy another one. We are not going through another Paige mourning ___________(insert dead pet here). It's too much for one little 5 year old to deal with, let alone feeling like a crappy parent knowing that 2 deaths were your fault. (3 dead pets within a couple weeks - let's not.) So, I scooped it out of the cage with a salad tong and put it in a Disney princess bag which I felt was kind of fitting considering her name and put her in the big black barrel. Then I prayed that if "Sunny...

Part 1 - "No more fish" Our good friends (the Perry's) offered to give Paige one of their fish since they just had babies. I was away when they picked it up but when I got home that night I asked Jason about the fish & he said it was fine and he put it in her tank.... oh no! I never cleaned it out after the last fish died . I ran in her room and said "Oh crap!" Paige sat straight up in bed and started crying. She said she didn't want any more fish . They die too much. I asked Jason to get the fish out of her room before she saw it in the morning - he grabbed the whole tank & threw it away. He said, "No more fish." The picture above is James impersonation of a dead fish . It makes me laugh every time I see it. No more fish. Part 2 - "the Haircut" It seems like most moms have horror stories of their kids & scissors . My little sister Megan had a mullet for quite a few years because she wouldn't leave her hair alone and rece...

This was the Betta fish that was Paige's first pet. I thought it would live forever and my sister assured me that they are darn near impossible to kill. And after all the assassination attempts on poor Cody's life from a myriad of preschoolers, I began to think Cody was immortal. That all changed today. Cody had lived through countless over feedings and muck in his fish tank. I was tired of the stench and thought I would do him & Paige a favor and really clean out his tank good. Jason had cleaned it out just a day or two prior and his water again returned to pea soup status thanks to James. Anyway, I safely put him in a bowl & began cleaning his tank. What I've learned from this experience is that bleach & fish don't mix, no matter how many times you rinse out the rocks & filters - you might want to neutralize the water before returning the fix to it's "toxic" home. If not this is what you get... Paige didn't have the heart to flush h...