remembering jaundice

 yes, i said jaundice.

what does this have to do with this little water frog you ask? well, it's a funny little story.

right after julian was born we wanted to get ella a little pet to kind of ease the adjustment of a new baby brother.  i was really nervous about how she would adjust and i had heard that a pet could help so of course i was going to try.  we didn't want to get too crazy with a pet that would take a whole lot of time so we settled on a goldfish.  ha, ha!!  that kind of makes me laugh now looking back.  we were chickens.  i was already nervous about having another baby.  anyways, ella was stoked on her very own pet. yoshi was more like her big sister who was fun to play with here and there but usually ended up knocking her down.  we encouraged her to name her new little pet.  have you ever noticed, most kid's kind of name pets according to some sort of physical trait?  i remember some of my childhood pet's names...streaks,  mittens, midnight...maybe we just weren't too creative.

i remember ella kind of sitting there a minute and thinking...hmmm...'jaundice' she said.  'what?!!!' i giggled.  well i guess it made sense.  julian was pretty jaundice after birth and we had to keep him in the filtered sunlight as much of the day as we could.  i remember putting him down for a nap in his room with the shades open and the sunlight on him and moving him as the sunlight through the window moved.  ella, my little observer, was very interested in this whole activity.  i remember her peeking through the crack in the door and telling me when a shadow was cast on him.  so ella's first little pet was named jaundice.  he was soon replaced by jaundice number 2 and 3 until i just gave up and luckily the novelty of the fish wore off and she didn't even notice when the little fish tank was packed away...hey, i had a baby to feed and a toddler to potty train.

so four years later i still think about and remember jaundice every time i see a goldfish.

 yesterday we went to the pet store in an effort to save our one remaining goldfish.  i was told that an african water frog is like a little filter system for the basic goldfish setup.  so we now have one more pet.  sadly, we were a little too late and mr goldfish died last night.  

i'm hoping we can keep this little guy alive. 

 he is pretty cute!