Where's My Freaking Parental Handbook?

It's amazing how parents can try their hardest to do what's best one minute, and the next minute, not be so sure in their decision... but what sucks is that our kids are the ones that have to deal with our decisions... regardless of whether our decisions are right or wrong...

Last night, Jayruh's flip flop broke.. No big deal, right? yeah........ not so much.

A little bit of backstory.. black is Jayruh's favorite color. These flip flops were black. They were a rather nice pair too, not the flimsy kind you can buy at Walmart. She's had these shoes since WAY before she could fit into them. I can't remember where I got them.. come to think of it, I'm pretty sure I found them somewhere or they were a "hand me down." So not only has she had them forever, they're also her favorite color and "go to" pair of flip flops (she has like 4 diff pairs)... My Jayruh is extremely sentimental. She hates to throw ANYTHING away. She cries like you wouldn't believe- not because she's being a brat, but it's traumatic for her to know she's never going to have them again... no matter what the item is... I understand, I was the same way as a kid.

Anyway, when it was time to leave church last night and her shoe was broken (beyond repair, I might add) I made the quick decision to toss the shoes away. I couldn't find the broken one, and I wasn't going to bring home the one that wasn't broken. My house is SOO cluttered from the move, I didn't want ANOTHER single shoe with no match.

Jayruh lost it. She was sobbing. She was traumatized. I've never seen her like that before. In the car on the way home she kept repeating "you can't throw it away" in between sobs... She wasn't telling me I'm not allowed to throw it away, she was repeating it in disbelief. Like I said completely traumatized. Why didn't I just bring them home and throw them away when she was asleep, or next week, or next month? They were already too small for her anyway...

In my mind, there was a bigger picture. It wasn't just about a shoe. It was about losing something that you love. It was a life lesson. It was teaching her that nothing lasts forever, that things of this world are not eternal. We love things, we lose things, we mourn things, but then ultimately life goes on. I thought, it's better she experience that first with the shoe than with a parent, grandparent, beloved pet ... etc... It was about the difference in material things and things that actually really matter.

This wasn't my intention when I threw it away though.. I didn't expect that intense reaction from her. As I held her in my arms on the way out to the car everything inside me wanted to go get her shoes and bring them back to her... it's just a stupid shoe, why not? All the way home I was seconds away from turning around and getting them out of the garbage. When I got home I held her and loved on her until she fell asleep in my lap, which was no easy task.. she cried herself to sleep. I kept repeating over and over the "life lesson" which I mentioned above. "baby, we have things that we looove. And we cherish them and take good care of them while we have them. but not everything lasts forever. It's okay to cry and be sad. You miss them very much, I know. That happens in life sometimes. We lose things and it hurts us, but everything will be okay. You cry as much as you need to, my love. Everything will all be okay." I rocked her to sleep like this.

Maybe I'm a horribly harsh parent. Maybe I made the wrong decision. it sucks that my kids have to suffer the consequences of such decisions. I'll never know whether or not I did the right thing. She was okay this morning, but I can't just erase the image of her in so much pain last night... damn I wish parenting could be more black and white. I'm beginning to hate grey more and more.