A Sad Fishy Tale...

So I threw a little birthday party for my 4 year old's birthday...it was so much fun!  It was a carnival/circus theme (pictures coming soon) and the kids loved it! We had a goldfish toss and the kids (all 16 of them) won a real live goldfish!  I could tell the parents just loved this by the look on their faces as they picked up their children and received their new pet!  Since 3 of my own children attended, we ended up with 3 little goldfish of our own.  The kids were so excited about having fish for pets and named them "Swimmy", "Peaches" and "Franklin".  They found them a home of their own (in one of my nice apothecary jars) and they fed them regularly. They had the fish a whole 24 hours when we discovered that my 4 year old killed, mauled, mangled, accidentally hurt the fish! I was upset when I saw the fish....two had already passed on and the third was on his way out...the suffering was horrible! I began wondering if my little one had a "cruel streak" in her!  I imagined her as an older girl being unkind to others and having no friends.  I took my husband's child my daughter  into the bathroom with me and we had a "chat". I had her look at the fish in their dead & near dead state and asked her what she had done to them.  She was bawling loudly at this point, realizing what she had done.  She told me she had wanted to hold them and had picked them up out of the water to pet them.  One poor guy was missing his little tail!  As I talked to her a little bit longer (and calmed myself down) I realized that this little chick had just been to the aquarium about 2 days ago.  At the aquarium, petting of sea creatures like sting rays and holding of crabs & starfish was encouraged! Of course she thought she could pet a goldfish!  It all made sense!  She was not the murderer I had imagined her to be!  As we flushed Swimmy, Peaches & Franklin down the toilet (explaining to my daughter that they will end up in heaven) I comforted my daughter who was still bawling and feeling guilt ridden! She cried for a good long time. I talked to her for a while about the big ocean they'll swim at in heaven and this made her happy. But the next thing she says is, "Oh no! There are whales in the ocean!" My son explained that whales eat krill, not goldfish...again she was happy and then she said, "Oh no! There are dolphins in the ocean!"...and on and on the conversation went....I hope I did the right thing flushing those suffering fish down the toilet with her watching and I hope she doesn't have nightmares...she is just 4 after all!