One Fish, Two Fish, Dead Fish, Blue Fish

I went to bed at midnight Friday night. Not what I hoped. After all, I had an important speech on motherhood to give the very next day at Little America in Salt Lake City to an audience of over 100 people. I needed my beauty sleep. I needed a clear head. I needed everything to run smoothly the next morning so I could feel at ease and be focused on the task at hand.

Didn't exactly happen that way.

While lying in bed Friday night (at midnight), I mulled and mulled over how to spend my time the next morning. I needed to leave Kaysville by 10:45 to make it on time to the luncheon where I would be speaking. My son had a baseball game at 9:30, and although he plays 100 or more baseball games this season, this happened to be the only local one, so it was hard to pass up a simple opportunity to see him play. BUT, on the other hand, I knew I would be leaving my other children for a good portion of the day, and I had already left them quite a bit the day before, running errands. What to do. . . What to do. . .

I finally fell asleep, deciding I would see what the morning brought. The next day I woke up early and began my attempt at looking beautiful (after all, if the speech failed, I needed to at least look good, right?). Since I was so "on the ball," I was ready early and decided to go to the game. I knew it meant a lot to my son, and since I had been coming down a little hard on his behavior lately, I felt I needed to reinforce to him how much I loved him. I was a little concerned about smelling like a little puppy when I got to the luncheon from spending my morning outside, but decided my son was definitely worth it! Off I went.

After maybe 10 minutes, the phone rang. It was home. I thought to myself, What could possibly have gone wrong already? I barely left the house. I was tempted for a brief moment to not answer, but I have to admit I have set up a pretty catchy ring tone from home that makes it hard to ignore. It's the song from Lady Antebellum called, "I Need You Now," and the phrase that always plays goes like this: "I said I wouldn't call, but I've lost all control, and I need you now." So fitting. They always promise they won't call. They always do anyway.

I slid the green button on the screen and answered. It was my seven-year-old. She sounded a little panicked. Pretty soon I found out why.

It appeared our baby had eaten our pet fish!

Situated right next to Berkley's crib is a dresser (living in the basement, every room is jammed with furniture, making it impossible to situate her bedroom without a dresser adjacent to her crib). On the dresser is (was) the fish bowl. The blue beta fish is actually my five-year-old son's that he got for Christmas. It's been a very resilient fish. I mean, it's lasted a whole four months already, even though there have been times we've forgotten to feed it, or times when we've fed it too much, or times it's gone a little too long in between bowl cleanings. It seems it survived everything--except Berkley, that is.

I put Berkley down for a nap right before I left. She's kind of going through that in-between stage where it's almost time to bag the morning nap altogether, but some days she just has to have it. She acted tired, so I put her down. I guess she wasn't as tired as I thought. I guess Boston forgot to slide the fish bowl back into the opposite corner of the dresser when he fed it that morning. I guess Berkley thought it looked like a fun toy. I guess she was able to reach the fish bowl by standing up in her crib and pulling it over towards her. I guess she dumped it in her crib. Then my only guess is that our poor fish floundered around until it slipped away to fish heaven, and then Berkley, who puts absolutely everything in her mouth, ate it!

This is what our fish used to look like--pretty beautiful fish, don't you think?

I can only say "guess" at these events because, in reality, only Berkley knows what really happened. All that the rest of us know is that where there was once a beautiful blue fish swimming in a tank by her crib, there is now only an empty bowl. And since the only thing we could find of our pet fish was a few blue bits and pieces here and here on her crib sheet, well, the conclusion seems kind of obvious. Berkley ate it!

Does this look like the face of a little blue beta-eater?

So, although I hoped for a disaster-free, stress-free morning to help me feel confident and carefree as I left to give a speech on none other than motherhood, well . . . it just didn't happen. And all I can say is, "That's motherhood!"

At the luncheon that honors amazing women. More on this to come. It was an incredible experience. Those are just a few of the remarkable women who were there. It was hard to believe that I was speaking to them.