Category: family

I need some time alone, in my house. Alone, alone, alone. I can’t clean with people around me and yet, there is always someone around me. I can’t wait for Brian to go to preschool. Please, AOL preschool, make room for Brian soon, ok?\
In other news- no more dead fish! We have three whole living fish. Rock on!

Even though I keep killing off our fish and another one looks to have one fin in the toilet, I tried to get Kevin to buy a bigger fish tank this weekend. He said no. No! To me. His loving and devoted wife. Boo. The tank we have now is angled in the front, like a bay window, and I don’t like that. I found a tank that has a curved front and back, so the bird’s eye view is a marquis. It’s cool, with no angles getting in the way of enjoying the view. Pretty soon though it looks like there may not be any fish to enjoy. We bought a “Fish for Dummies” book. Now one of us just has to read it. Kevin said that maybe in six months we can upgrade to a bigger tank. Isn’t he a meanie?\
Kevin and I have cut some items from the house fix up projects. Say goodbye to the enlarged linen closet and the deck. Boo. This will lower the cost by 1/3, which makes us breathe and sleep easier though. This depends on whether the contractor can put in the patio but still have it so we can add a deck later. We may have to switch to a different type of patio for this to work. I am frustrated with how long this is taking. Bleh.

Since Max is now the big 0-8, I gave him the big t-a-l-k tonight, by myself. No book, no Kevin, no video. Max knew a lot about the science of how babies were created: sperm from the man + egg from the woman = baby. But he was stumped when I asked him how the sperm got from the man to the woman. Now for the difficult part.\
I drew a stick-figure man with a penis and a stick-figure woman with a uterus and vagina and off we were. I explained that sex is physical affection only between husband and wife. Cough yea,right cough. It’s like a really special close hug (yes, I used the stupid phrase from that stupid book) where the man puts his penis in the vagina so the sperm can get from the man to the egg. I went on to say that sex has many names, some of which are rude and shouldn’t be used, unless you are making a Farrelly Brothers movie. (Yea, jokes like this- totally only said in my head- is why I kind of thought it would be best to do this without Kevin around initially.) I told Max it was important for him to know about sex now because he is old enough and that wrong information could start filtering to him through friends, older siblings of friends, tv, etc, but that it isn’t something he should talk about with others because it is private and special. I emphasized that he could come talk to and ask questions of Mommy, Daddy, the grandparents, or his aunts and uncles though (look out, family members). Lastly, I told him that sex is awesome and fun and just looking at Daddy makes me want to kiss kiss kiss him all over his face.\
Max was a little embarrassed, he admitted, and kept going back to the science part of it. Overall, I give us an A**. Phew.\
I am totally tempted to scan my stick-figure drawings in and add it to this entry, but then I started writing over the drawings to highlight the important parts: penis goes in vagina, only married people do it, not something to talk about, totally awesome and fun. At one point, Max took the pen from me and corrected my spelling. Heh.\
Did I forget anything important that an 8 year old should know?\
Hmm, how come we don’t have a tag on this blog for sex? Guess I’ll just file this one under “Jen” 🙂

Yesterday, Max named the one gold goldfish we have Dart and the two new tiny ones Beta and Gamma. We also have two silver goldfish, but they don’t have names yet.\
One of the new tiny fish died today. Less than 24 hours after coming into our home. Sniff. Earlier, Brian was telling the fish how much he loved them. He couldn’t find the second little fish, so we all pushed our faces close to the tank and started searching. I thought it was hiding behind one of the swim-through-thingies I bought since I had seen it earlier and didn’t think it’d be eaten that quickly. Brian actually spotted it listlessly floating/swimming around and we watched while it went under the filter (which stops about half-way down the tank). It looked like it was stuck to the underside, but I think it was just practically dead and was trying to float up.\
I told the kids that it had died and I was sorry. I wanted to wait until after they went to bed to dispose of it, but got impatient. Brian watched me unhook the filter and the fish popped up to the top of the water. I dropped it in the toilet and said, “Bye little fish. We didn’t know you’d get ill. Sorry. We love you.” Flush. Only, the tank didn’t flush all the way down. I had horrible visions of this dead fish floating back up to the toilet bowl. Brian flushed the toilet two more times and finally it went down.\
Bye, Mr Fishy, we hardly knew ya. But at least you didn’t get eaten!\
ETA- I am in the top 10% of scorers in TWoP’s TV Bigshot game. Woot!

Max received a fish tank for his birthday. Wheee. The boys and I have been having lots of fun watching the fish. Kevin and I bought the tank, accessories, and three fish as the present and told Max could pick out more fish later. Well, later is today. He picked out two little tiny ones (per my strongly worded suggestion) but now that the fish are home and I see how big the original fish are, I am worried for the new little guys. Hope they aren’t eaten!\
ETA- I did some googling after posting this entry and the two types of fish aren’t compatible. Plus the kind of fish I bought are happier in a school, but I only bought 2 of them. And I learned that goldfish continue to grow so that I shouldn’t have gotten more fish anyway. Lastly, we have been feeding the fish the wrong type of food! Oy, I am a bad fish mommy.

I ordered a “Where do babies come from?” type book and a “How to talk to your child about sex” book in preparation for “the big talk” with Max and both were a bust. They were too immature, even though Max is in the targeted age range, and described sex as a special, really close hug. Ugh. I knew I should have gone to a real bookstore and actually look at the books before buying.