+ 0 - 0 | § ¶The Binky Fairy
Alex had a dentist appointment on Wednesday. He is cavity-free (woo-hoo!) but has an overbite that is probably a result of his continued use of his precious binkies. The next day, when I was getting him out of bed, he told me that he was getting too big for his binkies (repeating what Dan has been telling him every day lately). He seemed really willing to talk about it, so I told him about the binky fairy, who comes to the houses of boys like him and takes their binkies in exchange for a toy. He said that he would do it, so we agreed that he would use them one last time for his nap that day, then he would put the binkies out on the counter overnight for the Binky Fairy. That night, we told Alex that we would take him to the store so that he could pick out a toy that he would like to ask the binky fairy for. To our amazement, he went to bed without the binkies and without really complaining. He also slept all the way through the night without them. When he woke up, his dairy truck was waiting for him. He hasn't asked for the binkies since. I really hope that he soon decides that he's too big for diapers...we're working on that one.+ 0 - 0 | § ¶A Fish Tale
I know most of you come to read about the kids, but today I figured I'd post about the fish. Up until recently, our tank was filled with community fish. The style of the tank was frequently referred to as "natural", which can also be described more accurately as "overgrown with weeds and algae." So, I took out about 5 gallons of plant matter (corkscrew valisnarious for those who care) out of the tank, and we gave about half of our fish to a neighbor. Then we started our plan to restock the tank with different fish and different plants. We started by getting a pleco, because that would probably fit in well with the new theme, which is a few large carnivorous fish. They are fish that grow to be rather large and well armored. They aren't aggressive themselves, but they would stand up to other aggressive fish. We then got a Congo Bichir, which supposedly grows rather large. It was mislabeled as a Marbled Bichir, which doesn't grow quite as large. This was a nice surprise for me. I imagine someone else who isn't as well equiped to handle large fish would take it differently. Then we got another pleco, to keep the first company. We got this one larger than the first, because we saw it in the pet store, and it was obviously one that had outgrown someone else's tank, and they had given it back to the pet store. We felt bad for it, and wanted to give it a good home where it would have room to stretch out.
We noticed that the fish started to behave oddly recently, and then started to develop ick. It turns out that the filter and heater had not been turned back on after the last water change, a week previous, and this had allowed the tank to drift into conditions ripe for diseases to take over the tank. So, we fixed the heater situation, and medicated the tank. Hopefully, the plecos and the bichir will survive, but we have already lost a few of the less hardy fish, namely our hatchet fish.
In preparation for our fish healing, we went ahead and ordered a large plant package for the tank. Because our water is hard, we tried to get plants that would handle the conditions better, mostly anubias and different types of aquatic onions. We're hoping that we can find a few plants out of the package that will thrive in our tank, without taking it over. In the future, we're contemplating getting an arowana for the tank. That could be interesting.