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.

It was during two very late night/early morning family trips to the bathroom recently that I learned the following important life lessons:

1. We all need to cut the liquids out a little earlier in the evening.
2. Our next place needs to have at least 2 bathrooms.
3. My youngest monkey is probably going to turn out with a case of OCD.
4. All my effort to instill the “family sticks together no matter what” principal is working.

It was roughly 3:30am on a Thursday night/Friday morning when I heard the sounds of monkey feet shuffling about. I flew out of bed and checked the pantry first. Yeah, I now not the first logical place. Last time I heard a middle of the night monkey adventure, I caught the youngest monkey in the pantry eating beef jerky. “It makes a good midnight snack” ya know.

Then I hear the familiar sound of monkey tinkle, followed by “I’ve gotta go too!!” I plod down the hall realizing I need to go too. So, I queue up as the littlest one is done. She barely gets her toilet paper in the toilet and the eldest is ploppin’ her tushy down. While she begins to commence with the task at hand, the little one begins to twitch and look beyond irritated. Just as I am about to ask her what’s up, she belts out “You can’t do that!! You can’t pee pee on my pee pee!!” By now I really need to go and my sleepy noggin is trying to process the freakage starting to occur. Instinctually, eldest wipes, tosses paper, I sit to pee. That is when the complete meltdown began… First was the loud scream “NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!” Then the crying began. Lastly, through sobs- “You can’t pee pee on her pee pee on my pee pee. It’s just wrong!!!!” Eldest monkey and I both froze, just staring at the meltdown. I’m thinking of the best way to handle this and figure the best place to do so is not while on the potty. I get up, complete my mission and am going to flush when the lil one yells (again) “NOOOOO!!! I will flush it!!” She marches up to the handle, gazes down into the bowl, says “I’m so sorry pee pee” as though she is bidding fairwell to a dceased pet goldfish and then proceeds to flush the toilet. After she was satisfied it all went down properly, the wee one marches up to me, sticks her finger out at me in a pointing manner and declares “YOU should know better.” And back to bed she went.

Eldest monkey and I shake our heads and back to bed we go. As she enters their bedroom, I hear her mutter “Dude, it’s just pee.” Then I hear “It’s just wrong!” So yeah, we flush inbetween now and I am bracing from some serious future OCD.

Roughly two weeks later, around the same time, I awake to realize that both monkeys have climbed in bed with me and the tiny one has hopped down on the way to another middle of the night bathroom venture. At the same moment I realize I am wet, eldest yells “Mommy- she peed on me!!” Mom mode kicks in, I’m wide awake now. I ask her to stop yelling, tell I’ll get her cleaned up, but we don’t want to make her sister feel bad. Off the bed I hop to go deal with the little one when she realizes she’s had an accident and begins to lose it. I’m getting her calmed down and stripping off the peed on jammers when I hear the oldest one start yelling. “No mommy, it wasn’t her fault, it was me!! I peed the bed!! Tell her it was me!!” She comes trucking down the hall to the bathroom stripping off her jammie bottoms and unders. She stickes them out at her sister and says “Look! It wasn’t your fault honey, it was mine, I’m sorry.” I take the unders and look and here, bless her little heart, she had squeezed out like four drops of pee so her sister won’t feel bad. THAT is love. That is how we roll.