#gotcha day!!!

[pancakethesweetie]

Happy 2nd Gotcha Day Pancake!

I can't believe it's been two years! Time has flown by!

I'm in my junior year of college, and I've had you in my life since my first semester of freshman year. You've seen me through my first days of nursing classes, my long nights working on essays, all of my zoom classes when the world shut down, and even my very first day of clinicals!

We've had a rough time of it lately, what with your sight getting worse, but you're a trooper! You even put up with my hovering and the feeding tweezers without much of a fuss.

I am so, so grateful to have you with me in this big, confusing world. When everything gets to be too much, I know I can sit down and watch you swim around and quiet my mind for a time.

You are the light of my life baby boy! I don't know what I'd do without your silly little face watching me go about my days. And even if you hate the camera, you still let me take my pictures.

(though you really didn't want to sit still today)

Swim on, cutie pie! I love you so, so, so much!!!

❤️~B 11/20/20

[pancakethesweetie]

Happy Gotcha Day Pancake!!!

I can’t believe it’s been a year since you came home with me baby boy! I remember rescuing you like it was yesterday... you were so skinny and lethargic and I was terrified that you weren’t going to make it through that first night. I didn’t fall asleep until 4:00 am the next day because I spent all night warming up the pre-treated water I got to put in that horrid cube so that you could breath a little better and watching you so carefully.

And you went from this on the day I brought you home:

all the way to this one year later:

Baby boy, I remember every single moment from the first time I saw you in the room of your previous home. I remember truly adoring you from the second I rescued you, and I remember crying when I put you into that 2.5 gallon and you swam. You’ve come so, so far from that pale, skinny, lethargic and clamped fish I brought home a year ago. 

And I’m not going to lie and say that I haven’t made mistakes. I’ve made plenty and I will make more in the future because I’m not perfect, but you’ve been very forgiving of every one. I promise to learn from the mistakes I’ve made and I will make sure to keep improving your life as much as I possibly can.

((For example, your present this year. I got you catappa leaves and alder cones!! Tannins!!))

Pancake, baby boy, you are my world. You are the reason I get out of bed every single morning and keep going, even when my brain doesn’t want me to. I look at your little feisty face and watch you go about your life and it soothes me. 

((Even if you give me the nastiest side eye every time I sit in front of your tank and coo at you. 😂 ))

Happy gotcha day baby boy! I love you so, so much.

❤~B 11/20/19