Unique bad day

So today was already not a great day for me. Julie is acting a little weird -- fussy, but with no solution. Not hungry, clean diaper, not tired, not wanting the swing, and not happy when I'm holding her. She's alternating between that and smiling, laughing, and talking to me. And the switch has no warning. So I'm a little frustrated. Apparently I've got some internal hormonal issues going on right now too, because my reaction to all this is a lot more emotional that it sounds like it should be on paper. I think it's the first day (of what I'm guessing will be many) when I said to myself, "What on earth made me think I could be a mom??"

I decided to take Julie out for a walk a few minutes ago. Just before I left, I happened to look in the fish tank, just because I was walking by it at that moment. I easily spotted the two goldfish, but had to look a little more for the crawdad. It's not unusual that I should have to look for him. Crayfish like to hide. If you're going to keep them, you need to have rocks or something like that in your tank, into which they can retreat. I have two such rocks, and often have to look in and behind them to find him.

Well, I looked. And I looked. And I took off the lid to the tank and looked with an aerial view. And I looked from each end of the tank. And I can't find him.

Yesterday, I cleaned the tank, repositioned the fake foliage, cleaned out and replaced the filter, and added more water to the tank. When I went to bed at the ungodly hour of 1:00am, I noticed the crawdad clambering against the front wall of the tank, like he was trying to climb it. I don't think he can climb a flat surface -- I had yet to see him do it. When I added water to the tank, I filled it a little higher than I usually do, and when I replace the filter, I put the long end of the tube in the tank side rather than in the filter side (I never pay attention to it before I take it apart). I think that sometime during the night, my crawdad climbed onto a rock, got hold of the filter tube, climbed up it, and climbed out of the tank through the opening in which the filter sits. It's not entirely implausible -- crayfish are climbers. I just figured it would never be a problem as long as the rocks were low enough, because crayfish are also bottom-dwellers.

The good news is that now we can buy an algae-eater and maybe a pretty fish. The bad news is that somewhere in my house is a dead (by now) crawdad in a very good hiding spot.

My day just got bad on a whole new level.

Farewell dear Couscous. Some pictures to remember you by...happily at rest, poised to move, and on the attack: