Broken Hearts

I broke Lucy's heart this last weekend. In the process, she broke mine too.

Since we have three stories to our home, we often times have to "cage" Lucy into one area. This particular evening, Heath had closed our bedroom door to corral her in our bedroom and master bathroom. I was in the bathroom painting my toenails.

Lucy seemed particularly interested in my makeup bag on the counter.

I tried averting her interest by giving her other random things to play with: tampons, a brush, my mascara. Nothing was working. She kept reaching for my makeup bag.

"Lucy. No."

She would look at me with a blank stare, then immediately go back up to her tippy toes, reaching for the bag.

"Lucy. I said, no!"

She dropped back down to her flat foot and flopped her reaching arm back down to her side. She then grabbed my brush and lifted it to her hair, moving it back and forth - as if to act very innocent.

I looked down to paint another nail and then wham! My makeup bag came tumbling down. It was unzipped; therefore, random containers and eyeliner pencil shavings went flying through the air, then covered the floor.

"Lucy! What did I say? I said, no, no, no!"

Don't take my exclamation points wrong; I wasn't yelling. Was the voice stern and frustrated? Absolutely.

She watched as I squatted down, trying to find and pick up items and throw them back in the bag. Then, I discovered what I had anticipated - my blush. It was crumbled into a million pieces.

I let out a huff.

I pointed at it, showed it to Lucy, and said, "Look what you did. You broke it."

I threw it in the makeup bag and looked up just in time to see the saddest face I had ever witnessed.  Her brow line dipped, her eyes were scrunched, and her bottom lip was pushed out to the max. Her arms were at her sides and she just stood there in her little pajamas, with her belly protruding her pajama pants.

The tears came slowly and she only let out the tiniest wail. Her heart was broken.

My heart? Well, it didn't take long and it was broken too. I felt awful.

I shoved the makeup bag out of the way and opened my arms to her. Without thinking twice, she fell into them, hugging me tight. I immediately started telling her how sorry I was.

"I'm sorry baby. I know you don't understand."

All I could imagine was that mean uncle on 'Home Alone' saying, "Look what you did, you little jerk!"

I felt horrible. Reflecting on it, I really didn't get hard with her; but, she must have sensed my irritation. She is getting so smart that I sometimes forget that she is still just 17 months. She may know what 'no' means; but, she doesn't understand that if she pulls my makeup off the counter that it could break.

While we hugged on the bathroom floor and I apologized while rubbing her hair out of her eyes, I think our hearts both healed. It took her a few minutes to forgive me and it only took one tear for me to forgive her.

This discipline thing is going to be harder than I thought. I can't wait until she can fully understand.