This Fish Has a Tail

It's very exciting when your toddler starts talking in complete sentences, even when those sentences include sentiments like: "Mommy smells like poop." (In my defense, he had just pooped on me, so technically we both smelled like poop.)

I recently took The Roc in for his two-year checkup. I dread these checkups, not because I can't stand to see my darling child getting poked with long needles, but because The Roc's pediatrician's waiting room has an aquarium with seven or eight tropical fish in it.

Now, I suffer from pretty severe ichthyophobia (fear of fish). Ever since I can remember, I've been nauseated, panicked, and downright petrified in the presence of these scaly, slippery, cold-blooded monsters. I don't want to catch them, eat them, get in the water with them, or look at them. I even get a little queasy reading One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish to The Roc. (Don't get me started on The Cat in the Hat. Will someone please get that fish out of the teapot???!!!)

Toddlers loooove fish. It's possible that even I loved fish when I was a toddler. But I definitely don't love them now. At the pediatrician's office, I want to stay as far away from that aquarium as possible--in the opposite corner of the waiting room, by the magazine rack, or, preferably, in the parking lot, locked in my car.

But we all find ourselves doing things we don't want to for the sake of our children. It's God's way of reminding us that we really do love them, even when they poop on us. I know I love The Roc more than I love myself, because I take him to a doctor with a fish tank in her waiting room, and I will even sit within arm's reach while he bangs on the glass, practically daring those finned fiends to leap out of their tank and destroy us.

On this visit, I was rewarded for my courage with The Roc's first complete sentence. He stared at the tank (which, as I've said, was chock full of terrifying tropical fish) for a long, long time. Then, he raised a chubby little finger, pointed at a giant yellow brute, and announced: "This fish has a tail."