Tommy

Not the greatest picture...but it's a fish.

Meet our newest addition, Tommy.

I forgot to post about our beloved Betta. :(

He didn't do too well after a water change and after a day of swimming upside down and flopping around, finally passed on(the day before our trip to MD). This was extremely interesting for Mike and I to be on the parent side of this event. We weren't quite sure how to handle it, especially since Lily saw that Betta wasn't doing so well and now somewhat grasping death and going to Heaven.

So...we did the best we could. We answered questions, a lot of questions and did a lot of staring at each other like, who's going to answer that one. We gave each other looks that said, good answer.. wow, she accepted that one...now what?...this part took a while and lasted over dinner.

In short, we told her that Betta went to live with God. That he lived a good life, he got sick and that his body couldn't go on. But he's better now that he lives with God and He will take care of him. She even connected that he was with Pop now and that maybe he's friends with Goldie, Mike's fish growing up. **Side note-not sure if Mike had a fish Goldie or if he made her up. We tend to use stories from we grew up to help Lily understand that others go through things like she is. She really felt better once hearing Daddy had a fish in Heaven too.**

And, Daddy took Betta to a "fish guy"?? I dunno where that came from, one of our answers she amazingly accepted to a question she asked about what happens to him now? So, the "fish guy" lives in our bathroom and Daddy secretly visited him while I gave the girls their vitamins :)

So, now back from our trip, we got a new fish. A baby Betta.

It will take up to a year and a half for this fish to grow into a full adult. hmmm...

And, when we were discussing what to name him, the Presidents were fresh in our minds from our trip to DC. She has also become very fond of Thomas Jefferson since the trip and knowing about his founding of UVA and that Uncle Mark went there. She has even said that she wants to go visit UVA, Monticello and that one day she'll buy his house :)

So, we have Tommy, the fish, named after Thomas Jefferson :).