I totally get it now, Mom

When we were small kids, we were never allowed to have pets. We begged and begged and begged for a dog for years. And then they finally caved, and when I was in Fourth grade I was allowed to get a fish. (Eventually we broke then down and we got hamsters, then a cat, and finally a dog when I was in Eighth grade).

For Christmas this year, the kids got a fake fish as a gift. I was a bit skeptical about having a fake fish and kept asking my husband, where are we going to put it?! But eventually I caved and I filled the bowl up. Jake was crazy about that fish the second he saw it, seeing him so happy I thought, maybe a fake fish isn't so bad? I don't have to feed it or change the water, and it's kind of cool.

Then again came the question, where are we going to put this thing? My biggest fear was putting it somewhere the kids could pull it over on themselves. So their bedrooms were out of the question. I left it on the kitchen table for a day, then against my better judgment I put the fish in the living room. Not 24 hours later, I had a soaking wet 2 year old.

In that moment, I thought to myself, thank god it wasn't a real fish, that he had only dumped the water and not pulled over the glass bowl, and, no more pets (we already have a dog), not even the fake ones. The fish is currently living on the kitchen counter where the kids can't get to it until we find it a new location where it can be seen but not dumped out.