Most kids are afraid of the dark and my children are no exception. They like to have a nightlight on and we allow it. My kids have the tendency to wake up in the middle of the night and relocate. They may move to another part of their room and nest on the floor or they may move to another part of the house entirely. Mostly they seem to relocate to one of the couches in our home. Since the kids roam, we have nightlights located in various rooms. By the way, the kids are not sleepwalking although Jill has done that in the past.

As you know, we recently adopted fish. The tank is located on a cabinet countertop in our family room. Behind the tank is an outlet in which a nightlight is plugged. We had every intention of removing this nightlight until we realized that the fish we adopted are afraid of the dark.

At the store we asked if we needed to keep the tank light on and were advised that not only did we not need to keep it on at night but that it might make some of the fish stressed and we should watch out for their comfort. Stressed? Fish swim endlessly with food dropped into their tank. What could they be stressed about? Do they have to worry about sending the kids to college or saving for their retirement? I paid their mortgage — well, my sister paid their mortgage but I paid for the landscaping!

So we watched for signs of stress but the fish swam happily with the light on. But turn the light off and they dash for the back of the tank where the nightlight is. Turn the tank light back on and the fish start to swim throughout the tank footage. Light off, back they dash, and they’re not nice about it either. They push and shove each other to get to the light first.

We started with kids that are afraid of the dark and have moved on to fish with the same problems. How do you explain to a fish that there are no monsters under the bed? Jill thinks a more important problem they have is where to go potty, but that’s another subject entirely.

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