Before Gavin and I were married, I moved into a bungalo in Mimico and bought, of all things, a very small fishtank. I called it my "three gallons of liquid happiness." I filled it with beige stones, a plant, and seven neon cardinal tetras that I named after the Borg (one-of-seven, two-of-seven, three-of-seven...you get it).
If we were speaking in person, this is where I would tell you to stop me if I'd already told you the story about the tank's evolution from "three gallons of liquid happiness" to "three gallons of liquid deathtrap." And this is also where I'll stop telling that story now, and tell you the one I logged in to write about.
Ever since my friend shared the news on his blog about his son's idyllic daycare, where they have hamsters and fish, and bring in actual ponies to entertain and enlighten the children, I've been stewing about the lack of animals in the otherwise nurturing, empowering, and safe daycare that my children attend and for which we are very grateful. (I mean, COME ON! Is it fair to the rest of the pony-starved children for some to get rides at preschool, and not others? I'm happy for him, I really am...but the sheer number of animals at that preschool was amazing to me.) I started asking other parents whether they have pets in their preschool classrooms.
And eventually I decided that our daycare needed a fish tank. Or to be more accurate, I decided that it needed a second fish tank. One for fish. The preschool room already has a tank, but it is filled with plants.
I did a bunch of reading about what kinds of aquariums are good for an educational setting. I asked a teacher in the toddler room if she would care for some fish if I provided the tank. I weighed the benefits of really big tanks (harder to kill fish) with the benefits of really small tanks (easier to fit into small spaces). This morning I brought my donation into daycare, while Morgen and Lillian bounced around begging the teacher if they could take it out of the box and play with it. It's shatterproof, of a medium-to-small size, and soon, once we've washed it and filled it with faux river rocks and water plants, and waited for the good tank bugs to grow, we'll introduce a few, hopefully hardy, fish into the environment....
While we were picking out our daycare's new tank, we also bought a new tank for our living room. I'm not sure what to call it yet. Maybe the "Intrepid." Or maybe we'll call it the "Poor-substitute-for-a-pony Tank." Thanks for the inspiration, friends with children in super-cool daycare programs...and please wish those daycare fish luck.
4 comments:
Ponies are overrated. Kids really love fish. They're easy to see, colourful, and put on a show regardless of whta they're doing. Ponies are intimidating and have tempestuous personalities. Don't believe the hype.
- Jeff (victim of a fickle pony)
While there is something in what you have to say about fish, I've never met a pony I didn't like. Someday we'll have to swap stories. You tell me what happened to your love of ponies, and I'll tell you what happened to one-through-six of seven.
My favourite daycare animal is still Sally the Snail. A snail in a tank. Need I say more.
Caroline: don't make me buy a snail tank, too. There were snails in my three gallons of ldt by the way. And then there were these little, voracious, parasitical white worms....
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