Turtle Surgery

At the aquarium earlier this week, I found Kate this cute little pink and green stuffed turtle. She absolutely loves her turtle - and I love the fact that I'm not constantly accidentally sitting on all her invisible turtles around the house anymore since she has a real turtle to love! Last night when I went to her bedroom to check on her, I found Kate and dear turtle sleeping peacefully together. She had tucked her little turtle in under the covers right next to her - and instead of her special blanket being draped over her shoulders as usual, she had covered its back with it!

By Monday afternoon (a mere few hours after getting the turtle), she'd already loved on it so much that it's little black string smile was already half broken. It had a half a smile and half a loose thread hanging off its mouth. She didn't really say much about it, but I could tell it was bothering her the last couple days.

Yesterday we went over to a friend's house and took the precious broken-smiled turtle with us. This dear friend knows how to sew so I asked her if she could fix the smile for us. She was going to work on it at Kate's nap time, but when it came time for her to lay down without the turtle she refused. She wouldn't let go of it (even when I explained how it was going to get a new smile) and because I could totally empathize with her pain, I didn't have the heart to force her into it.

So she went to sleep with the turtle tightly clutched to her chest. After she'd been asleep a while I snuck in to get the turtle for its little "surgery" and hopefully have it back before she could notice. Probably not the best parenting strategy in retrospect, but sometimes trying to spare our kids pain makes us do crazy things. The good news is that the turtle pulled through its lip repair surgery with flying colors and when Kate saw it after she woke up from her nap, her grin was wider than the grand canyon! She was so proud of it she talked about it non-stop the rest of the day - and even this morning when she woke up her little girl mouth was still whirling with the story of how her turtle can smile again.

I've been thinking over Kate's reaction to her beloved turtle and my empathy for her situation. How many broken things or situations in my life do I hold onto as tightly as she did that little turtle when I asked to take it to fix it? How willing am I to turn those things over in trust to Someone who can heal them or make them better? And if I did find the strength or bravery to turn them over, how thrilled would I be when they were returned to me in better condition than before? There are several broken things in my life that I need to loosen my grip on - and today I'm going to start trying my best to do that.

Who knew I could gain wisdom from watching a three year old's adventures with a stuffed turtle?