Last night at bedtime Graham fell apart. For a four year old, the days are so big and so frustrating and wonderful. Every night we review the day and talk about our favorite parts, but last night Graham reviewed his day through huge, wet sobs. He cited:
* The point “at the end of the day” when I pinched him on purpose. He could not recall any details of this alleged incident – which I denied and said it must have been an accident if I did pinch him – but he insisted that it happened and it hurt his feelings so so so much because he doesn’t want anyone to pinch him.
* That time when we ate dinner and didn’t have a picnic because he really really loves picnics and it was too cold to have a picnic and so thinking about that dinner makes him cry
* All of the pets I didn’t buy for him at Petsmart.
That last one is fair. We got the poor kid a fish for his birthday and it died two weeks later. I have been gun shy about replacing it — I’m not sure I can take care of a fish. It was a BETTA. What kind of awful idiot manages to kill a betta? They are easier to take care of than fake fish. In the wild they thrive in swampy gross water with no oxygen or food, just swimming around by themselves in those tiny little glass bowls that nature provides.
Graham has been a weirdly good sport about our slowness in replacing Mrs.Fishy-fish. But oh holy goodness last night he cried huge tears that would not stop because he wants another fish or a bird like Nicolaus has but not a parrot but a finch because then it wouldn’t bite him but his finch would be the kind that’s white with a red beak because white is such a beautiful color and that little bird was white and silver and it was too beautiful.
This was delivered through a very sincere and prolonged sob, so my transcription might contain errors but still you get the idea.
So yeah, I don’t know. The kid wants a pet. And more picnics, obviously, and for people not to (allegedly) pinch him on purpose. Reasonable things to want in life, don’t you think?