We saw in the paper today that there was an event down at city hall where they were collecting old athletic shoes for recycling (a Nike-sponsored program where the shoes are recycled into running tracks or something like that). Grace was up in the bedroom with me when I was pulling our old shoes out, so I tried to explain to her what I was doing. She knows we have one place downstairs where we put bottle/can recycling and one place for paper recycling. So I was explaining how when we throw something away it goes in a hole in the ground but when we recycle things are used again and it keeps our planet healthy (of course then having to try to explain what Planet Earth is).
We're driving in the car, heading downtown, when Grace suddenly starts to get weepy in the back seat. She is crying about how she can't run in these shoes and then how she needs these shoes to run - all very hard to understand since she is crying while trying to get this out. We finally realize that Grace thought we were going down there to take the very shoes off her feet to recycle them. And that freaked her out because she loves to talk about how her tennis shoes make her run FAST, and she was so sad thinking she'd no longer have them. Jim and I were hiding our laughing while reassuring her that no, her shoes were not going to be given away - just Mommy and Daddy's old ones.
I guess we'll keep working on the recycling lesson, maybe in a little more abstract terms.
3 comments:
My reaction was like yours? Only I was able to laugh outloud, but then as quick as the laugh? came the Ohhhhh....how sad/cute.
Glad you were able to figure out what she was upset about.
That had to be HUGE in her world! bt
I am on Gracie's side... please don't give away her running shoes. They make her so fast I cannot catch her.
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