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November 09, 2007
A Cute Story...OR "How Your Child Can Break Your Heart"
Ladies and gentlemen, children of all ages, dear faithful readers of my blog, I now turn my keyboard over to my sweetie Megan, who has a story she would like to share...
Take it away, baby!
Jonah is an amazing sleeper. He emerged into the world on January 5, 2005 at 1:24 am, gurgled and cooed for a couple of hours, then he fell asleep....and I didn't see his eyes again until he was over three months old. To this day, he sleeps every night from around 7pm until 7am the next morning, unless I awaken him. It is extremely unusual for us to hear a peep from him once he has gone to bed for the night.
So, when he began to cry the other night 15 minutes or so after I kissed him goodnight and left his room, I definitely took notice. I was sitting at the computer just outside his room doing some work when a sad wail came from his room. I waited, unsure if I should respond or if he was just calling out in his sleep. But, no, the sobbing became more and more forlorn and insistent.
I went into Jonah's room and knelt down by his bed. "What's wrong, honey?" I asked. And the sad reply came with a sob, "I broke it! It's broken." Now, it was dark in there and so I couldn't immediately see what he thought was broken and so I said, "What is broken, sweetheart?" "It's broken!" he said again and held up a hand with something curled inside. I took the item from him, but I wasn't sure what it was at first. That's when he held up the stuffed dog. The stuffed dog that Aunt Abby had given him when he stayed with her a month ago...the one that he insisted had to stand in the grass to pee...the one that he had named Zoe until Jon read the tag to him containing the name Poofy. And it was this very heart-shaped, cardboard tag that Jonah was telling me was broken...as much a part of the stuffed dog as his ears or his tail. At least to Jonah.
Suddenly it all became clear. The heart-shaped tag had ripped in half. It was broken. My first awkward attempt to assure him that half the tag (made up of one full heart) was still intact, yielded only more sobbing and insisting that he had broken the dog. I paused for a moment and then, aha! It occurred to me that I have the tools to fix this problem. I explained to Jonah that I was going to fix it and I would be right back. A shaky "okay" came to me in the dark as I ran out of the room. I returned moments later with a piece of scotch tape and quickly repaired the cardboard tag.
"Okay" I told Jonah "I fixed it, see?" And I showed him that the tag was again two hearts that open and close together. Jonah hugged the dog close and breathed, "Thank you Mommy" as he settled in for the night.
Phew! One more crisis solved by Super Mommy! I only hope that I will always be this adept at fixing his broken heart.
Posted by Jon at November 9, 2007 08:59 PM