My three year old wanted a goldfish, so reluctantly we bought him one. He was overjoyed when we placed it in his room in a small bowl. Well, every night when I put my son to bed, I would kiss him, I would kiss his older sister (5yrs), and say "goodnight, see you in the morning." Every morning I would check on my son and the fish. Well, one morning the fish was missing! Not to alarm my son, I quietly asked him where his fish was...he looked at me with his big brown eyes and said "when I kissed him good night, he jumped down to play, and then he stopped jumping and went to sleep, see!" Little did we know that my son was kissing the fish good night every night after we left the room.

Needless to say it was stiff as a board! How do you explain this to a three year old child? What would you do? We simply said "yes we can see you guys played until your little friend was all tired out so you let him sleep and come on in for breakfast"....then we replaced the fish with a new one. Later that day my husband explained to my son that the fish told him that he liked looking at our son through the bowl instead of his hands. The fish is alive and well and now our son throws him a kiss from bed.

- J. Robertson Sep 30, 2003