Nemo the Fish

On Wednesday, Michael's class went to a farm on the high school campus for a field trip.  They learned (got to pet/hold) about animals including rabbits, chicks, pigs, cows, horses, and a few others!  One of the stations was about fish.

They began by listening to the high schoolers teach them about the different parts of a fish and what the fish does. 

Then they lined up to play throw the ping pong ball into the cups of water to win a prize.  As they started, the high schoolers asked the teacher if it was okay to actually give the kids who won a fish.  She looked at me to ask my opinion because she didnt' want any parents to be mad at her.  I said sure, as long as Michael wasn't one of the kids who won!  She laughed. 

Michael's turn....uh oh, he made it!    He was one of 5 kids, so they did a run off....3 made it, including Michael again! 

One more round and these two boys won! 

When we came home, I warned Michael that sometimes goldfish don't last very long.  I told him sometimes they live 1 day, or 1 week, or 1 month.  But not very many live for years..  He didn't seem bothered by that news.  He finally named his fish "Nemo" on Thursday night.   Nemo seemed to like the Mason jar home we put him in.  I even changed his water yesterday!

Today we came home from Fresno to find Nemo dead.  Well, I found him that way, so I went to Michael and said, "Michael, I have some sad news for you.  Nemo died."

"Let's feed him to the cat.  I am very sad," he said very nonchalantly.

So we went to the kitchen, dumped out the water, put him on a plate and set him outside for the cat (who right now isn't even home)! 

Quite a different reaction than I expected....and quite different from the response I had as a child when my fish, Winner, died!  What a boy.