Broken

Did you hear it? About 6:30 this morning? Sort of a muffled tearing?

That was me. My heart broke.

My baby boy, Logan, broke it into a thousand pieces.

I was doing my morning romp around the computer when he came in with some shoes that are on the “no use” shelf. Too small for Joseph, but too big for Logan.

“Joseph told me I could wear these.”

“Not yet, they’re still too big for you.”

“But he SAID I could!”

“I know and you can but not til your foot gets bigger”

Much wailing and then the thump of landing on his butt, crying big fat tears. I thought it was the standard ‘can’t have what I want’ crying.

“You really really CAN wear these when you get a little bigger, Logie, but right now, they’d make you trip.”

“Nooooooo! They make me FASSSSTTTTTTTTTEEEEERRRRRRR!”

More crying ensues, and I sit down next to him. This is just too disproportionate to the problem at hand.

“Did someone tell you you were slow?”

“Yesh”

“Who?”

“Daniel.”

And that’s when my heart broke. Because he was tearing apart his closet because obviously new shoes would make him faster, of course. He’s 4.

I told him that for a 4 year old he was really fast. And that he’d get even faster when he got older. And that he was faster than me and I’m a grownup.

Then I told him Daniel was mean.

Does that make me a bad mother?