When Marissa was about 5 or 6 one of her favorite places to go was the Sanrio store in the mall. We bought her miscellaneous pens, pencils, notepads, stampers, etc. over the years, but the one thing she managed to hold onto was this Hello Kitty stamp ring. When we moved out to WV the kids found it somehow amidst all the toys they have (god knows where it was) and somehow, miraculously, kept track of it. It would periodically surface, and the littles would stamp their hands, faces, table, and random notes they write to us and each other.
The other day Charlie was playing with it, and lost the lid. The lid is the kitty face that snaps onto the stamp and keeps it sealed. In a fit, I told the littles if they couldn’t find the lid I had to throw the ring away. They couldn’t find it, so I made good on my threat, and tossed it into the trash.
A couple of days later Phoebe came out of her room, triumphant, with the kitty face and said, “I found the lid! Can I have my ring back now?”
I had felt completely justified throwing the stamp part away, and told her that it was gone, too late, maybe next time she’ll keep better track of her things. She had a disappointed look on her face, but came over to the trash by my desk and threw away the lid. I didn’t care at the time. It was a ring, they lost the lid, so what? And then this morning I saw the kitty face in the trash can. I proceeded to feel very, very, very guilty. So much so that I woke Bryan up (at an ungodly hour, I might add) to try to talk to him about how guilty I felt for throwing the ring away, when I could’ve held onto it for another day or two.
I started to feel so bad about it that, of course, I cried. I cried and cried and cried some more, so Bryan did what any self-respecting husband of a pregnant woman would do: he made a cup of coffee, put on some gloves, and dug through the trash to find it.
Unfortunately it was too late — the trash had been taken already, and the ring was off to a landfill somewhere. He told me, “It’s okay, we’ll find another one.” I had already looked, though, and the only thing I could find was a blue one (not pink, but still the same ring) in England, for about $10. About $8 more than what the ring was worth. And then I cried some more.
He tried to console me, and told me that it was just a ring, no big deal, they lost the lid, the stamp would’ve dried out, they didn’t care as much as I clearly did, etc. etc. He said all the right things, but I just felt bad. Then I saw it — the thing that just did me in: a square of paper that Phoebe had cut out of her coloring book, and stamped with that damn Hello Kitty stamper ring.
I am not kidding when I tell you that I lost it. Big, heaving, ugly sobs. I felt mean. I felt rotten. I felt like the world’s biggest jerk that I didn’t give Phoebe the benefit of the doubt, I didn’t give her time to find the lid, I just chucked it into the trash. There was this knot in my stomach tha wouldn’t go away. I know that kids lose things, and I know it’s no big deal in the scheme of life, but I was just fixated on the fact that I was mad, and threw it away.
So, Bryan (my hero) bought a new one, the one on eBay, for a ridiculous amount of money. Phoebe maybe won’t even care that much, and maybe the lid to the next one will get lost, too. But I feel a little less guilty, and a lot more calm, and very lucky that my husband is so good at putting up with my madness.
Aug 23, 2009 
