I Haven't Seen Everything

And you'd think I would have, with 9 kids.  Or at least I should have seen everything a YOUNG child can do.  I admit that where teens are concerned, I'm in moderately new territory but I've had seven 4 year olds already, and yet 4 year old #7 is displaying a truly new behavior.

It started a few weeks ago.  It was the Arsenic Hour, that crazy time right before dinner when everyone is tired and stressed out and I'm working on dinner and it is bananas.

I was, truthfully, tuning out Sarah, our 4 year old daughter. She was chattering away and suddenly she was in full blown meltdown, complete with wracking sobs and heartwrenching tears.  As I hadn't been paying attention, it took me a few minutes to figure out why she was sad.

Ok. The reason. The REASON.

She had watched a My Little Pony episode that afternoon, and in the episode, one of the main ponies initially rejected a small turtle as her pet because he couldn't fly.

Apparently, Sarah latched onto the rejection felt by that little turtle, and her little heart broke.  This, in spite of the fact that at the end of the episode, the pony changed her mind and DID choose the turtle.

It took close to half an hour to talk her down from the ceiling.

Yesterday, the same kind of thing happened.

Sarah was playing a puzzle game called Chuzzle.  She quit the game and lay down on the couch. A few minutes later, she fell apart. She was crying and wailing and sobbing.  I was working on the computer and she wouldn't tell me what was wrong, so I just pulled her into my lap and kept working.

Finally, the reason became clear.  When someone is done with Chuzzle, she hits a Quit button.  A screen comes up saying something like "Are you sure you want to quit?"  There are 2 icons.  The "Yes, I want to quit" icon shows a SAD Chuzzle.  The "No, I don't want to quit" icon shows a Happy Chuzzle.

To quit, you have to push NO, which shows the Sad Chuzzle.

And her little heart was broken, because she made the Sad Chuzzle sad.  It was HER FAULT that the Chuzzle was sad.

Ok, that's just weird.  I held her in my lap and comforted her even as I tried not to laugh hysterically.  At this point, Kevin was up and he talked her through it by making silly sad faces and explaining that the Chuzzle (which wasn't real) was showing a silly kind of sad face.  Did it help?  Maybe?  Sarah spent the next few minutes alternating between sobs and giggling.

I guess this means our girl is very sensitive?  Very empathetic?  I don't know.  It is actually a little disturbing because the poor thing doesn't seem to do well with sad events.  On the other hand, her actual sibs can be crying hard and she isn't really upset.  I guess she's used to wailing here in the house.

It is fascinating when a kid does something new.  It is stretching as a parent.  It is challenging.  It makes me more well rounded as a mother.  It makes me pray even more for the Lord's wisdom.