When it comes to memories, elephants got nothin’ on my monkeys. Back in like May we were at Wally World getting my oh so beloved Sudafed and crabbiness ensued. So, in an attempt to redirect, I told them if they were good, I’d take them to see the fishies. Thus a ritual began. Every trip to Wally World led to a pass by the fish. When they first saw them, they of course wanted to bring them all home. “But mommy we can have a whole wall of tanks.” I knew we were going to be moving in the next couple of months and moving fish is NOT fun. So, I told them when we moved, we’d get some fish. They made me pinky swear.

Months later, we did indeed move. Two days after that, they began to not only ask when we were going to get fish, but reminded me that I did pinky swear. Never mind boxes were everywhere, complete exhaustion on my part and having to run around the entire town a million times to get eldest signed up for school, they wanted their fishies. So, I did what any mom in my position would do. I stalled my ass off.

End of August neared and eldest monkey’s birthday rolled around. Yup, mom got her a fish tank. We marched into Wally World and marched out with a feeder goldfish lilest monkey named Tink, a “fancy” goldfish I named sushi, a spotted Molly eldest monkey named Wonder Woman and Chauncey The Wondersnail. Oh the love and excitement. They wanted to sleep by the tank. They wanted to tuck them all in with blankets and yes, I had to sing the tank the bloomin’ lullaby.

Next morning Chauncey ole love was bobbing around on the top of the water, floating like a lil golden apple. I am FREAKING and googling the hell out of Gold Mystery Snails. We have to rush off to start the day. On the way home, I decide to stop at the pet store and see what they think of what I read and get Chauncey “a friend,” just in case. Kind of a soften the blow kind of thing.

Before we walk in there, I type up a lil explanation of what’s going on to show the sales person on my iPhone notes. (I swear I would marry that phone and bear its children.) She rocks and did really well with explaining it without the monkeys catching on. Of course it helped they were wielding their own mini carts (which amped my anxiety off the charts) and were distracted by more fish. She agreed it could just be an air bubble and instructed me how to handle it. WOOT! Small problem- they didn’t have ANY snails. Grrr. But, the girls spotted the smallest lil African Dwarf Frog I’ve ever seen. Seriously, it’s like Über Dwarf. So, we brought Princess Leia home and added her to the aquatic tribe.

BTW, we get home and and that lil shit Chauncey is happily whipping around the tank. Sneaky lil snail.

Two days later the lights go out on the tank. Grrr..

Then Wednesday morning rolls around and the dreaded has happened. Wonder Woman is so not wonderful any longer. Thankfully, instead of floating to the top, she’d gotten stuck between the wall of the tank and the giant dayglow colored stone thingie that I thought was obnoxious when the girls picked it out, but now want to hug. Eldest thinks her fish is just sleeping.

Now, lil miss “Wonder Woman’s Mommy” just started kindergarten the week before so she is a wee bit on the emotional side right now. Plus, if there’s a way to keep my kids from suffering a loss, even just a fish, I’m gonna take it. Knowing her lil sister will rat me out in a heartbeat (I seriously tried to give her a lesson on avoiding the complete truth to keep from really hurting another person’s feelings the week prior. I know mother of the year here. She ate a coveted Lunchable while eldest was at school and I told her instead of saying a Lunchable, just list the contents of it when eldest asked her what she had for lunch. First words outta her mouth when eldest climbed in the getter at the end of her school day “Mommy got me a Lunchable and I ate it. I’m sorry,” DRAMA commenced.) yeah off to grandma and grandpas she went. Thing was, I only had a little over an hour window now to pull this all off. Operation Wonder Woman II is on. Come Hell or high water, I’m not failing this one. So, I haul ass to the pet store and am about to start running to another store when out from some crazy tower thing in the tank pops a spotted molly that looks miraculously close to the original Wonder Woman. (The fish, not Linda Carter, but I guess you knew that.) The lil fish guy tosses in like 5 of the teeny tiniest lil itty bitty snails that I’ve ever seen. YAY! A distraction, just in case. I fly home with 30 minutes to spare. I give a quick porcelain funeral, then tank clean and treated and all critters in place. I barely made it. But, it was a complete success. We actually still need to name all the bitty snails that are currently being collectively called “cutie pies.” Lilest monkey comes home and checks the tank and is none the wiser. True test comes when we get eldest monkey. She burns a path in the hall carpet racing to their room to see the new snails and yells “MOMMY!! MOMMY!” I freak until I hear “Wonder Woman is awake now!! And how cute are these lil insy snails!?!??!” **HAPPY DANCE** Mission successful.

This was a monkey weekend away so I was on aquatic tribe feeding duty. Saturday night I sat in there for a bit just watching our crazy lil tank family. Of course I am now neurotic about checking and counting heads in there to make sure all are still kicking happily. Now, the lil ones are hard to find and tend to tribe up at times, crawling all over each other. Poor Chauncey had 2 on his shell the other day. But, I swear two of them were getting it on. Their lil heads were all intertwined and there was definitely something going on. Now, I’ve never seen a snail throw down, so for all I know there could have been some brawl going on over territory or one of the other snails or maybe one was just talking some smack. I’m a lover, not a fighter though, so I’m really thinking they were doing the lil snail nasty. Which means I should probably start googling snail birthing . By the way, you are all getting early holiday presents. Start picking your snail names now. Gotta be honest, whatever they were doing, it was kind of cool. I didn’t stand there long with my held tilted wondering what was going on. I turned off the light and pondered playing them a lil Barry White. Get down with your bad selves lil itty bitty snails.