Tag: fish

Buddy, the leopard gecko joins the family. 

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This little guy joined our family on Sunday afternoon. Mario has been begging for a gecko for months. We considered one as a Christmas present but then decided against it because Mario didn’t plead and beg for it the week before Christmas. But then Mario broke his arm on New Year’s Eve; and he had nothing better to do than to dream about getting a new pet. 

He’d been talking about killing off his two fish for a year (we had told him in the past that he didn’t need a new pet because he had pet fish). Ri finally had heard enough and adopted his fish so she didn’t have to fret for their lives any longer. Now she has four fish swimming around in her room (Jon is known to pull up a chair in her room and watch them). 

So between the broken arm, the fish adoption into Ri’s room, and Jon and mine’s inability to say “no”, we ended up at the Captive Bred Pets Store after Maria’s basketball game on Sunday. The store is tucked away off Morse Road and houses a ton of reptiles, mostly big ol’ snakes. The dude (and yes, he was all “dude”) working at the front desk got peppered by questions from Mario. 

“Where’s your leopard geckos? Do you have their supplies? How many do you have?”

The dude shook his head and mumbled “we don’t have any of those geckos right now.”

Mario was devastated and holding back the tears. Maria immediately turned to me and fought for her brother.

“We need to find another store to buy Mario’s gecko. We can’t go home until he has one.”

I, on the other hand, felt blessed. Oh well, we tried, Mario. Now let’s head home and stare at the fish and be content with Rocco…. Well, not exactly. Jon and I both looked at Mario’s sweet face and knew we’d need to go someplace else.

So we hit Petland. Others had warned us not to go there to buy a gecko. But desperate times call for desperate measures. Mario ran to the gecko aquarium and Ri got a manager to help us. Mario picked up a few of them and then landed on his favorite. He affirmed that the one he was holding so gently was the one he wanted. 

We bought all the accessories and the live crickets and mealworms (not as gross as you’d think) and we’re off to the house to introduce the gecko to Grandview. Mario still had not chosen a name when we arrived home. I had fought for Clem after my grandpa but he nixed it. Ri mentioned a few but he didn’t like hers either.

Jon had to go back to the pet store because we had gotten the wrong size heat pad. This caused severe worry with Mario who was worried that his gecko would get too cold. Maria ran around to get blankets to wrap his box in while we waited for Jon. I went downstairs to get some water and when I returned, I learned our gecko’s name was Buddy. Maria informed me that Mario kept calling it “little buddy” when he picked it up or petted it so she suggested he just call it “Buddy.” Mario liked the idea and hence Buddy was its name. 

Jon arrived home and got the heating pad under the aquarium. He and Mario prepared the sand and vermiculite and housing quarters for Buddy. When they were finished, I was beckoned to Mario’s room. There stood Mario proud as a new papa letting Buddy climb all over him.

   
   
I couldn’t get over how personable Buddy was with us. He just climbed all over Mario and then sat in Mario’s palm and let Mario pet him. Maria begged to hold him and Mario finally relented. Buddy was just as good with her. He climbed up her leg and chilled on her arm while she stroked his skin. He won over our hearts by night’s end. Jon and I find ourselves checking in on Buddy as well as the kids before we go to bed at night.

  
And Mario is just precious watching over him in the morning and evening. He talks to him every morning before school and gets him out to play. He runs home from school to fetch him and say hello. We had to tell him that he still needed to pay attention to Rocco who felt a bit left out last night when the kids pushed him out of Mario’s room so they could get Buddy out. But Mario quickly explained to Rocco that he loves him just as much as he always has, it’s just that “he has to welcome Buddy to our house since he’s so new.”

Rocco understood, we are sure.

RIP Orangey

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I walked in the front door from my run this morning and Maria ran to the top of the stairs to stop me.  “Mom, come quick, my fish is gone!”  I ran up the stairs to find Jon and Mario in her room peering inside her tank.  There was only one fish swimming around rather than two.  I looked at Jon with the “is something bad happening that you can’t tell me in front of the kids look” but he just looked at me perplexed.  Mario couldn’t keep his mouth shut, however.

“I think my fish had to eat Maria’s fish. It just had to.  Look how big my fish is today!”  All the while he was smiling and excited about this super cool act performed by his fish.  Maria, on the other hand, curled her knees up to her chest on her bed and bawled like a baby who just had her doll pulled from her arms.  Between wails, she’d cry:

“My Orangey fish! He got eaten by Mario’s stupid fish.  Orangey is dead. No. No. No.”

It was 7:55 when all of this went down.  Ri had to be at school at 8:20.  Needless to say, I assumed she’d get her first tardy of the quarter.  But we hugged and talked and somehow got ourselves up and out the door to school.  We made it right on time and explained to Mrs. Palmer that Orangey had died. She gave Ri a hug and Ri dragged me over to her locker.  I gave her one last hug goodbye and watched her sit somberly at her table as I left.  I got out of my 11:30 meeting early so I could run over and see her at recess.  She was talking to her Kindergarten teacher when I spotted her and when she saw me she ran right over to me and embraced me tightly.

She told me she was feeling a little better but didn’t feel like playing too much.  I explained to her that she may be sad for a while and that she just needed to explain what happened to her friends if they asked her what was the matter.  I called Jon to report her status and we both agreed that Mario’s fish must have eaten Orangey.  But one goldfish eating another after four years?  We checked all over the floor and behind the dresser though and there was no Orangey.

When our babysitter picked her up, she told him that Mario’s fish ate her fish.  He laughed.  He is 21 years old and a boy.  What do you expect?  She cried.  He apologized.  She cried more.  Jon cheered her up by telling her that we would go out to dinner at Tommy’s Pizza.  That soothed her for a while.  But when we got home, she jumped right in to making a grave for Orangey, and a tombstone, and a eulogy for her, me, Jon, and Mario.  She was planning his funeral for later in the evening.

The funeral went off without a hitch.  We all sat on our bed except for Ri who led the program.  She began the service with her eulogy:

“You were a nice fish, Orangey.  People die and people are born. There is sad times and happy. We love you.”

Well, none of us could beat that.  I read mine, dad read his, and Mario read his.  Then Ri brought out Orangey’s grave and his tombstone.  We all had to sign it.  Then she read his will.

“Orangey gave everything to Maria and her family.”

Jon and I had done a good job hiding our smiles up to this point but then we busted out a laugh.  Ri understood.  Funerals are about remembering happy times, too, she informs me.  Then she began to sing the words of her eulogy.  Again, Jon and I failed to control our chuckles.  Jon had to sing his eulogy, too, and he did it in his baritone voice.  Mario and Maria loved it and begged for more (Mario looked at me and whispered “I wish this day would never end!”).

After Jon’s song, Mario took off to his room and got his plant.  He brought it to Ri and told her that he wanted to give it to Orangey for his grave.  Maria was thrilled. The two of them went to Maria’s room and placed all of the items by her closet door.  The funeral was over.  Time to get back to life.   RIP Orangey Bobcat Ionno.

orangey