All About Fish And Soaps

Fish and soaps. A weird combination for a topic, right? I agree! That's why I'll first tell about the fish and then about the soaps and hopefully then you will see why they are related.

Three weeks ago, we bought some fish and finally got our fish tank out of the garage where it has been collecting dust for the last 4 years. This was a huge treat for my 2 year old daughter, who would gladly turn our house into a zoo if you give her half a chance.Unfortunately, we had some bad luck and 3 of them have died already. On Tuesday morning, the third one died and I took it out of the tank and put it in a container with the plan to through it away when it's madam's naptime, because she keeps following me like a shadow and will be very upset if she catch me flushing it down the toilet! So I just told her that it will go to heaven later.That afternoon, she went to sleep and I got busy with the chores and because I just LOVE to dump fish this way, I decided to leave this terrible job till last.My little madam decided to wake up a lot earlier than expected, before I got to flushing the deceased friend.She ran straight to the bathroom, looked into the container, shook her head and then looked at me very seriously and said: "he was evil".I was stunned. I knew that she knew about Jesus and she also tells us that He lives in everybody's hearts and in heaven, but I didn't expect her to grasp the whole concept of death and going to heaven only when you were good, because we never got into that with her. I simply said that the fish died and now he's going to heaven! So I'm wondering: how much can a 2 year old figure out for herself? Apparently a lot!

Now to the soaps. Every day, 6:30pm, we watch a very family-friendly soap. It's nothing like The Bold & The Beautiful or Days Of Our Lives. You will never see anyone in bed;swearing;killing or anything like that. The other night, something unexpected happened: one character, Bernard, accidentally got shot. We didn't expect this will happen and my daughter saw it. She immediately got very upset and I responded by telling her not to worry, that they shot him with tomato sauce and that they were just pretending. It seemed to be working, because she calmed down, but a little while later, she started to talk about Bernard and told me that they must call the police. I still don't know what to do about it. I keep telling her the "pretending" story, but wonder if she buys it.How does it happen that, the one day, your baby girl is still too small to understand a thing and the next day, she knows everything? How do you protect them and make sure they don't take things up the wrong way? Right now I'm considering to stop watching my soap!

My eyes were truly opened this week and now I can see my little girl's beautiful mind clearly. I will have to be more careful in the future and limit what she's being exposed to and I promised myself to always take time to talk to her about what happened. How do you deal with kids and TV? Leave a comment and let me know.