With the financial issues mostly hammered out, I was feeling okay about completely winging my lesson for the young women. Running late, I met up with Gary in the hallway, who passed me some much-needed Advil - the previous day's fundraiser had taken a toll on me. As I neared the drinking fountain, pills in hand, the Bishop caught up with me, and informed me that the Stake President, who was visiting that day, wanted to sit in on my class.
Side note: I've written about my girls before, and how much I love them. They are many things - wonderful, smart, kind, caring, fun-loving - but the one thing they are NOT is reverent. It's usually a pretty noisy, boisterous lesson. Normally when I teach, I've prepared well enough that when they go off-topic, I can bring them back. This was not one of those times; I was expecting a messy, unorganized free-for-all. And now, it would be witnessed by the Stake President.
My eyes widened, and I stared at the Bishop in horror. When I confessed that I was completely unprepared for the lesson, he just chuckled and said "You can handle it, Sister Poulsen. I've seen you teach those girls." I must have looked unconvinced, because he continued, "Just take those Advil and get in there. It will work out fine."
The purpose of this post really isn't to talk about my lesson (or even church), so I won't go into detail, except to say that, while rocky, the lesson did go well, and the Stake President showed no outward signs of horror. I tend to forget that he is also a parent of teenagers, so he understands.
After church ended, the rest of my family left, and I stayed behind to finish up on some of the financial stuff, as well as talk with several people. When I finally got into the car an hour later, I was starving... and had forgotten to pack a protein bar. Gary called, and promised to put eggrolls in the oven. I salivated the whole half-hour drive home while planning an afternoon of relaxation with the newspaper - maybe even a nap.
As soon as I walked in the door, Sarah told me that her fish water was really foggy. Heading over to her, I saw that it was murky beyond description, with two very unhappy goldfish trying their best not to move near the bottom of the tank. The filter had stopped working.
As this was the third filter that had quit on us in the last two years, I was pretty frustrated, but moved quickly into "save the fish" mode. I know we are living on borrowed time with these Wal-Mart goldfish, but - heaven help me - I'm not letting them go without a fight.
Ordinarily when I clean, I leave the fish in the tank, and do a partial water change. Because this wasn't an option, I quickly grabbed the fish net and transferred the fish into a goldfish bowl filled with fresh water. If fish made noise, their sighs of relief would have been instantaneous. They looked much happier, and I relaxed. A fish funeral had been avoided.
For most people, this would be a logical pause point. Goldie and Nemo were safe, swimming in their bowl; the life-threatening urgency is gone. There's enough time for the person who has gone without eating for the last 6 1/2 hours to get some lunch, right? Not if Sarah is your taskmaster!
Sarah doesn't handle it well when things go wrong, and she was dangerously close to a full-out meltdown. But, my blood sugar was low, my decision-making skills impaired, so I risked her wrath anyway. I headed upstairs to eat, only to find out that the oven hadn't even gotten up to temperature - so no eggrolls yet. Arrrggh. Back to the fish.
I started removing the plastic plants, and noticed a lot of uneaten fish food granules. They were falling like rain from the plastic leaves. I checked the container of fish food, which normally holds a year's worth of food, and it was almost empty. Opening the filter top, I quickly realized that the filter motor overheated and died in a valiant attempt to remove insane levels of partially dissolved fish food.
By now the eggrolls were done, and it was time for a quick meal. Sarah stayed downstairs, worrying and obsessing. After eating, Gary headed to Wal-Mart to buy a new filter, and I continued the clean-up efforts. Sarah had some trouble with the trip to the store, as it was Sunday, and we don't go shopping on Sundays to observe the Sabbath. I told her it was always okay to make exceptions for health emergencies - and her fish needed the filter to get healthy again. Since this was venturing into "gray" area, she had real trouble with it, but since her beloved fish were involved, she didn't berate us too much.
You might be wondering how so much food ended up in the tank. Sarah is a rule-follower, and the rule is two tiny pinches per feeding, so she wasn't the primary suspect. Turns out that Madi was the culprit - for reasons known only to her, she decided to feed her sister's pets a year's worth of food in one swoop. I think she realized she fed them WAY too much, but knew that confessing would get her in trouble, so she decided to pretend it didn't happen.
Such a valuable life lesson, yet so difficult to learn, even for adults. Ignoring things doesn't make them go away, and often makes things worse. To her credit, she immediately offered to help clean the whole tank (once her involvement became obvious), but I wasn't comfortable with that. Instead, she ended up scrubbing all of the aquarium plants as punishment for causing the almost-disaster. Thankfully, Sarah went outside to swing and calm down a bit (without prompting from me - progress in self-regulation!), so we were able to continue cleaning without her hovering.
Once the tank was cleaned, refilled, and the new filter installed, I wanted to wait a while before re-introducing the goldfish. They seemed reasonably happy in their bowl, even though Madi had dumped a bunch of food in there. (Really?? Did you not learn a thing from the tank adventure? Leave your sister's pets ALONE. Go feed the hungry rabbit in the corner!) This was probably the hardest part for Sarah; I knew the tank needed time to stabilize and the new filter needed time to clean the remaining sediment from the water, but all she could focus on was that her fish were not in their home.
We made it through the day, the fish were put back in the tank, Sarah went to bed, and everyone was still alive in the morning. A success story.
Oh, and all those plans I made for how to spend my Sunday afternoon? Yeah, right. Welcome to parenting.
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