Monday, November 14, 2011

Death of the LeapPad

Last Thursday morning I experienced what was quite possibly the worst thing I've had to deal with thus far in my parenting adventure. The heartache of my child. It was horrible. Horrible.

So as I've written before, Grace has a LeapPad that she absolutely loves. The only thing she's ever loved more than it is her old friend Giraffe whom she was given minutes after her birth.

Believe it or not, this is when he looked good.

Anyway, Thursday morning at 7 a.m. Grace came running into our room in hysterics saying that her LeapPad wouldn't work. I was barely awake and didn't think anything about it until she handed it to me and to my horror, I saw that the screen was broken. Very broken.

I pulled her onto the bed and Hubby and I gave her the bad news. We tried to be gentle about it as we explained that it was broken forever, and that she couldn't play with it anymore. Then we watched as she felt grief for the first time. Her face scrunched up and the tears started to flow. She sobbed and sobbed and insisted that no, it wasn't broken. Straight up denial. So then I was sobbing and sobbing. I was so sad for her.

Through my tears I pressed on, explaining that I was so sorry but the screen was broken and so it couldn't work anymore. She finally understood and got even sadder. I didn't take a picture at the time (of course) but this is kind of what she looked like:

Only worse.

She was bawling saying things like, "but I want to feed my dog!" and "I can't watch my singing video anymore??" And then she said the worst thing she has ever said. She looked me right in the eyes, still sobbing, and asked, "Are you going to throw it in the trash???"

Oh God help me. What was I supposed to say to that?

So then I became an even bigger blubbering mess. I am convinced that there is nothing worse than seeing your child in pain. This is just about a toy, I know. But she's only four and at this stage in her life a busted favorite toy is a huge deal. If I was this sad for her over a broken toy, what am I going to do when she walks through the door with a broken heart?

Suddenly she stopped crying and looked at me with deep concern. She said, "don't cry Mommy, it's okay Mommy! Some music will make you feel better!" Then she rushed out of the room and came back with her little toy computer you can play music with and proceeded to give me a little concert.

What a great kid.

Later that day I went out and bought her a new one. Seriously, how could I not? If it would've been any other toy we either wouldn't have replaced it or she would've had to wait a while. But she loves this thing so much and her little heart was completely devastated. You should've seen the way her face lit up when I gave her the new one. She was a happy girl. She looked more like this (my own kid this time):


And this is what I like to see.

3 comments:

  1. Dang you, Krisi! I thought I was going to get through the entire post without crying and then I got to the part about the broken heart and the tears started flowing.
    Poor you and poor Grace. I'm glad it was something that could be replaced easily.

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  2. Thank goodness it was something that could be replaced and wasn't the beloved giraffe.

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  3. Oh man, poor thing! I would have sobbed too for the kiddo. I loved the fact that she then tried to cheer YOU up. So sweet.

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