Oops!

Yesterday started with a not so good event. It was the last day of Christmas break and the kids needed to get things in order for the next day. Part of that was cleaning up their treasures from Christmas and putting their rooms in order. One of those chores was cleaning out their betta fish.
The middle schooler spent the best part of the day cleaning up his room. The youngest? Well, he wanted to move his furniture around. He wanted a new look for his room for the new year. SIGH!
We shifted things around some, which created an even bigger mess. Although once completed was better than before, and allowed us to purge some toys and broken things! This child likes to keep things even if they are broken, maybe we can fix them, or maybe I can find a part to replace a missing part.. and so goes the clutter. Together we went through these things and parted with most! Whoo hoo!
Now to the ooops! It was time to clean out his fish. Albert Einstein he called him, pretty blue and black with a tinge of red on the outer edge of his fins. This fish has been around since early October as a reward for good grades. Poor little thing, his water had gotten murky over the holidays as there was no time to clean him out.
He asked for help, so as we poured the fish into another holding container that little booger jumped when he was supposed to slip into said container, and straight down the hole, down the drain. We both looked at each other. Then came the silence. "Mom, where is he?" We are both looking at the sink,like maybe he will reappear, we looked back in the original bowl, looked at the running water. SIGH!
"Um, he um, he went down the drain." It was hard for me to say it out loud.
Little man, just as soon as the words fell out of my mouth, it became reality and the tears started rolling down his cheeks. Sitting the holding container down, he bolted for his room, throwing himself onto his bed sobbing.
Oh! The twisting of the heart. The middleschooler now hearing this starts to do all he can think of to help. He starts pulling out change, until he has $4.00. He wants to buy his brother a new fish. (on days when I wonder if they love each other I will pull from this memory)
Needless to say, we got another fish. We all put a little money toward a new one. That way everyone could enjoy watching our little man smile again. The new Albert Einstein Jr. is a different shade of blue, more of an aqua. With the promise of not cleaning a fish out around an open drain (the one in the boys bathroom you have to hold up, it won't hold on its own, we found out too late)the boys were able to sleep soundly.
With the first oops of the new year behind us, we hope the rest of the inevidable oops's are as "easy" to fix.