Saga of the Goldfish

About a month ago we went to Spencer's soccer carnival. It is sponsored by the AYSO and basically consists of a bunch of booths with games sponsored by the various teams. One of the booths offered the opportunity to win a goldfish if you could throw a ping pong ball and land it in a small fish bowl. Aubrey, the lover of all animals, immediately wanted to spend some of her tickets to try to win a fish. We told her that she could not have a fish but she was welcome to waste her tickets trying to win a fish she couldn't have if she wanted to. So she tried and of course she won. These days they don't seem to hand out the actual fish but rather a coupon which can be redeemed for a fish at a local pet store. I told her to give the coupon to another kid or throw it away since she couldn't have a fish and she got very indignant and told us that it wasn't fair that she couldn't have a fish because she had won it after all. I informed her for the umpteenth time that life wasn't fair and if you don't believe me just ask your Grandmother Reed. She continued to sulk and pout for the remainder of the afternoon but by nighttime she was back to her old self and I thought that she had let it go.



Than night as we were pulling the covers down to go to be we found this under a pillow:

The following morning we told her that her letter was very cute but that she still could not have a fish but we promised to think about it. She seemed to accept this and again I thought we were done. Five days latter under our pillow we found a picture of a goldfish with a big question mark on it. I asked her why we should let her get a fish when we are always having to remind her to take better care of her existing pets. She asked that if she took better care of her existing pets would we possibly reconsider. I used the we'll think about it line again and hoped that she would just give up and forget about it. A couple of weeks went by and we thought she had finally given up, then this showed up a few days ago addressed to whom it may concern:

I thought we had already decided this but hope springs eternal I guess. She has been doing a better job of taking care of the dog and the cat but we really don't want a stinky fish in her room. We finally made a deal with her that if she could run the mile at school in under 12 minutes then we would allow her to redeem her coupon as long as she bought the bowl and other fish accessories. This will be a real hurdle for her unlike getting good grades which for Aubrey at this stage in her life is about as difficult as breathing. She is very excited and has planned out a training regime she is going to start after school today with her friend Katy. So what do you think? Were we too soft? Have I been manipulated by a 10 year old?