What's a Tragedy to a 17 Month Old?

Answer: A dead glow worm. Read below for an explanation.

Recently I have been behind in my trips to the supermarket. We have two primary supermarkets in our city. One I call "Target" (real name: Silver Plaza) and the other I call "Walmart" (real name: Fu Mart). The Target (Silver Plaza) is a little more expensive, has better produce, less selection of everything else, but also has less people - a total plus like Target in the US. Fake Walmart (Fu Mart) is a bit cheaper, has wider selection, has some foreign food, but there are sooooo many people there. Someone once told me that the majority of people either do not have an air conditioner at home, or refuse to use it. So, when it is really hot or really cold, they go to the supermarket (usually Fu Mart since they have clothes and a book section) to hang out. I avoid going to both Fu Mart and Silver Plaza.

We get most of our produce from a little shop near our apartment, it is very convenient. However because I have avoided going to my most loathsome place with the wide selection, Fu Mart, I have been short on mustard, cheese, normal sugar, batteries, and ham. I was able to do without several of these things, but the batteries I really needed. I was unable to take pictures for about a week and a half because I did not buy batteries, but the real battery tragedy hit AB hard.

When AB goes to bed she likes to have her Glow Worm in the bed with her. She usually plays it until she goes to sleep. Sometimes we think she is sleeping but then from out of her room we hear Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, playing on her glow worm - totally precious. I am super impressed with the glow worm because it survives on 3 AA batteries for months, but all batteries run out at some point, and AB's glow worm batteries died yesterday. AB was very upset about this. She realized something was wrong with her glow worm during nap time, but she patiently waited until she woke up to show it to us. She carried her dead glow worm around our apartment pushing the button, and showing us that it would not play, sometimes even putting it up to her ear in hopes of hearing it. After a while it unnerved her so much she started crying. Her crying eventually turned into a full on melt-down with the hyperventilating and everything.

Quickly we started looking around for spare batteries. We ended up taking the batteries out of our smoke detector (just kidding, KB's remote control car) and put them in her glow worm. Somehow she was so overwhelmed with joy that this too caused her to cry. She pressed her glow worm, held it to her ear and wailed.

The only thing that could console her was me. I held her, played her glow worm, and we even turned on (aghast!) Baby Einstein. From the beginning to the end, this whole crying over her glow worm thing lasted about 45 minutes.

When AB gets in trouble she can be as strong willed as can be, but apparently she has a very tender spot for her glow worm.