Next week Michael and I will have been married ten years. And that has me thinking another think . . . Isn't it funny how ten years can feel like such a long time and such a short time also? As I've aged perspective must have aged with me. $10,000 doesn't seem like nearly as much money as it used to. $100,000 seems to have diminished in value as well. A week doesn't feel like very long to wait for something big (a birthday or a holiday) anymore, and every year when school starts I find myself asking where the summer has gone. I remember hearing adults talk about time and money this way when I was a child, and thinking they were nuts. Even if we are nuts, I wouldn't trade these ten years or make them move any faster or slower. They have been perfect. Though an extra $10,000 wouldn't kill me.
We finally relented to the children's incessant pleas for a pet and added a betta fish to our family. They seem happy with it, even though it is not a dog. The fish naming process was interesting to overhear. First he was named Fish. Then Silver. Then Lightning. Then Seth wanted Laser Head and Alice wanted Happy Fish, so they compromised with Happy Laser Fish, which was his name for all of a day. Michael kept plugging the name Eric but since the kids have (thankfully) never seen Monty Python, the humor of a pet fish named Eric is lost on them. Finally, one morning the two kids came to breakfast with a consensus. The fish is named Redhead. Thomas still calls him Silver. And Redhead, in his quiet fishy way, calls Thomas The Harbinger of Fishy Doom and Destruction that will Probably be my Death.
I suppose we'll have to wait to see how long that little boy will actually keep his paws out of the fishbowl.
