I committed the cardinal sin of parenting yesterday and regret it profoundly.

I threw out a broken toy without telling Clara about it first.

Ralph was a wind up bath toy that paddled his arms and swam. He was a gift from Papa T. Ralph was played with heavily for many months but recently he resided in the bottom of one of our toy bins. Yesterday, after the bin was tipped over and emptied, I spotted Ralph lying on the carpet with only one arm attached. Without really thinking about it I picked him up and tossed him in the kitchen garbage. Clara was busy playing, she doesn't even take Ralph in the bath anymore I thought to myself.

Many hours later I was drawing a solo bath for Clara which is an unusual event these days. She requested bubbles since Leo would not be there (he was terrified of bubbles last time we tried) and then I saw a lightbulb go on in her head. She dashed out of the bathroom and said she was going to get the PERFECT TOY. I froze. Seriously, I didn't know what to do. I considered playing dumb and concluding that Ralph was lost for now, but in the moment I decided I had to tell the truth or risk being be haunted by my actions.

I followed Clara out to the living room where she was maniacally digging through the toy bin Ralph had been in. I started slow, I told her Ralph had broken this afternoon and I had thrown him out. I was regretful and apologized while she cried. But instead of getting better and calming down, Clara started heaving, sobbing, and sputtering "I love Ralph". This was grief like I've never seen before. At this point I would have dug through the garbage to give her the pieces of Ralph but as luck would have it last night was garbage pick up so Ralph was outside on the sidewalk in a pile of black garbage bags.

I knew she would need closure of some sort to get over Ralph. She was sobbing and shaking and completely grief stricken. We opened the front blind and sat in front of the window. I held her on my lap and asked it she wanted to say goodbye to Ralph. She did and sat and cried and said "bye bye Ralph" over and over. We were a pitiful sight, I know this because Marc got home in the middle of our show. We told him what had happened and to be completely honest I was just about in tears at this point as well. We talked it all over and eventually the shaking subsided and the sobbing turned into a catch in her voice. I promised to never throw away her toys without talking to her about it first and we decided that we would see if we could find another wind up bath toy for her to buy with the money she earned rolling pennies with her Papa.

Whew, what an emotional evening. I don't look forward to the day one of her fish is found floating in the tank....