The Smokey Fiasco

On Wedsnesday Xander had recovered enough from his virus to have some energy, but not so much to go to school in the morning.
I decided to let him sleep in that morning and see how he was when he woke upe.
He woke up, saying he was hungry.
Good start, since he had been throwing up for the past couple days and hadn’t eaten anything.
After being spoiled with spaghetti-o’s for breakfast, he was up and bounding, using all that energy he hadn’t for the past several days.
He played on the Wii for a while on the game we had gotten him while he was sick, but eventually he started to putter and get into everything.
He was jumping from the floor to the bed, doing backyards flips,running up walls.
I just couldn’t let that energy go. We had a messy house. We had loads and loads of laundry.
“Xander, I’ll pay you if you fold that laundry.” I said to him.
“Two thousand dollars?” He said, his going rate, starting the negotiations high as usual.
“I don’t think so. I’d like two thousand dollars to fold laundry.”
“Hmmmmmm, how about one thousand?”
“How about you try again.” I said.
“I want a pet.” Xander stated.
No way, I thought. This negotiation thing is getting ridiculous. I don’t know if we should have encouraged this.
“You all ready have a dog and a cat. That’s what you get.” I said, matter-of-factly, but then I thought about it.
A fish. I wanted a fish. I used to have a beta fish and those were pretty andpeaceful.
“Okay, Xander” I said.
His eyes perked up immediately, with the twinkly of childhood wonder.
“If you fold all this laundry in an hour and then go to school for the afternoon, because you’re feeling so much better, without complaints, then we will get you a fish this afternoon.”
“Yes! Yay, mommy, thank you.” He squeled.
We immediately started with a folding lesson.
Now, this 6 year old boy nows how to fold. He has been folding since he was two when he wanted to hurry up and get to FL for vacation, but I was taking this opportunity to perfect his skill.
Of course, he did fold about 4 loads of laundry, socks and all, in an hour before going to school without complaints.
We were off to get the beta fish that afternoon.
We made a little vase with rocks and shells in the bottom for “smokey’s” home.
We ran to the pet store to pick out his new pet.
He chose a redish-blue medium size fish that was floating around peacefully and brought him home.
Now, it’s Friday morning. I woke up early, and Smokey’s home has been tipped over, the water spilled all over the counter.
Our cat, Josie, has eaten Smokey all ready.
I don’t know how I’m going to explain this one to X when he wakes up.