Kate's Birthday

We had a great little family party for Kate on her birthday. She seemed to understand that it was her day, and she went around singing "Happy Birthday" and talking about cake. We gave her a few presents and I made this amazing cake (okay stop laughing) which was YUMMY albeit somewhat ugly.













Kate displays her presents... and may I add that the Play-Doh set is amazing. Best ten bucks we ever spent... Of course we all three spent the next hour or so playing with it!
As a surprise, Travis brought home these two goldfish for Kate! (One for each year.) The full Goldfish Story is really quite excellent...
First let me say that (a) these were not your standard goldfish-priced goldfish... they were over $7 EACH! I personally don't think I could bring myself to spend that much on fish. At least not fish I wasn't going to eat. And (b) no your eyes are not deceiving you; that is a little tiny square vase they are swimming (very short) laps in. It was all we could find until we could buy them a proper home. That said, you can imagine my chagrin when I brought Kate home from our errands the next morning and, you guessed it, Fruit Snack is dead. After a brief scream I managed to cover the bowl with a paper towel so Kate wouldn't see, and I told her the fish were "sleeping." Then I called Travis who wanted to know which fish it was. I was like, "What? The GOLD one!" He then explained the differences between the two and made me check which was dead and which was alive. Because he'd already picked a favorite. Which of course was the dead one.

I know you're getting bored but the best is yet to come. Plus I am typing with one hand so this is requiring a lot more patience for me than it is for the reader. So that evening Travis took Kate back to the pet shop, which had agreed to replace the fish since the poor guy hadn't even made it 24 hours. He walked up to the counter, plopped the baggie with the fish corpse on the counter top, and said, "My fish died." The guy there was looking down but suddenly his head snapped up and he said, "Are you crying?" Travis said incredulously, "...NO..." (Apparently his voice sounded unsteady or something so the guy thought he was crying...) When he told me later I laughed until I cried. Just the picture in my head... a 30-year-old man walks into a pet store with a two-year-old and a dead goldfish, crying... Okay maybe you have to hear Travis tell the story but I thought it was hilarious!!!

PS Fruit Snack has been replaced by an almost all white goldfish (the only one left at the store!), not nearly as handsome as his predecessor, and both fish are now doing well and living in a bigger home. And in case you think we totally pulled the wool over Kate's eyes, not even close. She's not an idiot. As soon as she saw the surviving fish swimming alone in a pickle jar while we took care of the evidence, she kept asking where the "other one fishy" was... And then the next day, when we showed her that there were again two fish swimming together, she STILL asked about the "other one fishy!" I think we just pretended not to know what she was talking about. I know, you're thinking this was badly managed on the part of Mom & Dad, and we missed a perfect opportunity to discuss with her the fragility of life and what happens in death, etc., but we just decided to play dumb instead.