I planned to share something different today, but then this morning a coffee mug broke in my house.
A coffee mug my son painted when he was almost six.
One of my favorite mugs.
Sometimes, pottery breaks.
If you’ve been in my store with kids, you know we have a “one finger touch rule – you can touch gently with one finger, but don’t pick things up or push things over.” And I mean it when I tell parents that I have more things in my world to worry about than broken pottery. It can’t even make it on the list. And if something does break, I don’t worry about it – accidents happen and I will say that’s why they call them “accidents”, and not “on purposes.” (This was said to me many, many times while growing up.)
Because, sometimes pottery breaks.
So last night, while I was still at Christmas Village, Henry made himself hot chocolate. And the mug was still on the coffee table this morning when the little cat Tito went on her morning crazed cat run around the house. And she knocked the mug off the table onto the floor.
Sometimes, pottery breaks.
Michael and Henry both said instantly “maybe it didn’t break” but I know that sound better than they do. And I’m not going to lie: it was the sound of my heart breaking, too. Because at that moment I really, really cared about the mug getting broken.
If he has just put it in the kitchen when he was finished (I’ve asked again and again), if Michael had, if I had – but it was still there. If he had picked another mug. If Tito hadn’t been running right there. If if if.
I don’t want to get mad when these thing happen, because I don’t want him to think things matter more than people. But I was mad and sad and human, so I was. I counted to ten and acted more calm than I was, because I could see that my son, my little boy, was on the verge of feeling a lot worse about what happened than he should.
Sometimes, pottery breaks.
It is just a mug, and I can glue the piece back and put it on a shelf and keep the art. I can look at it and remember tha little boy who still had curls on his head who painted his Santa but didn’t want to color it in. Who asked for Legos and Power Rangers that year. Who still curls up in my lap like he did then, even if his legs take up a whole lot more room than they used to.
It is just a mug, yet so much more. And I am sad that it is broken, but sometimes pottery breaks.
