New Addition to the Family!

Yup - we've added a new member to our family. No, we didn't wait nine months for its arrival and no it's not fury with four legs. 'Shroom's and Lolli's Christmas present from their parents is their very first pet - a betta fish.

After a few days of talking up the fish, the kids had decided they wanted a red one (although we had to convince Lolli that pink bettas were not that common). We had purchased a neon blue (kids' choice) tank and some multi-colored marbles (again, kids' choice). I managed to dig up an old aquarium rock from our old broken 15-gallon tank.

[SIDE NOTE: Air Boss and I, B.C. (Before Children) had a hexagonal tank with about 18 fish - all of which died the same day. Long story short, I woke up one morning, smelled something fishy in the living room and screamed for Air Boss to "get over here!" as I saw all our fish floating belly-up on the surface of the water. They were all cooked to a greyish-white color. The heater's thermostat was broken and the fish were literally cooked to death. Tragic. Very tragic.]

By the time we got to the pet store, the kids were more fascinated by a cage full of albino white mice. Ick. Double ick. Ick. Ick. They didn't seem at all interested in fish.

Well, we got 'Shroom and Lolli to focus on the task at hand and in the end, they picked a beautiful blue fish with faint red streaks at the base of its fins.

"What shall we name him?" I asked just as Air Boss was about to pour Mr. Blue Betta into the new (very colorful) tank.

"Omigee!" was Lolli's quick response.

"Yeah, Omigee!" was 'Shroom's agreeing vote.

Omigee (pronounced "oh-ME-gee") it is. He's happily swimming about in his new home - very glad the over zealous and very curious preschoolers are in bed and no longer tapping his tank and smashing their noses on it.

Welcome to your new home, Omigee!

Oh, and in case you were wondering, "where did 'Omigee' come from?" it all originated from a little stuffed car Lolli received as a gift. Although she never saw Disney's "Cars" movie, she became quite attached to the little Italian car named Luigi (voiced by Tony Shalhoub). Somehow 'Luigi' morphed into 'Omigee' in her little toddler voice.