So, nothing traumatic has happened beyond the death of a much loved Daffodil (hence the quotation marks in the title) but he's so glum about it. DS is an empathetic soul - he gets upset when others are upset, he worries about people and things a lot. He's only just turned 2, but he's got a really good memory!
We picked up a cut daff on the way home from the park last week, and he proudly put it in a cup in some water on his table - it had been cut before we found it, and it wasn't in the best nick when we got it home. When he woke from his nap a few hours later it had completely wilted and the petals were falling off.
He looked at me, tears in his eyes, and begged me to make it better. And I didn't know what to say - he's my only child and I really wasn't anticipating having this talk for quite a while. I gently told him it had died, which meant it wasn't going to wake up again, and there wasn't anything I could do to make it better.
He's a big Bing fan, and there's an episode where Bing accidentally kills a butterfly by squeezing it too tight, and they bury it. He picked up his Daff, held it out to me and said "Like the Butterfly? Put it in the ground?" all the while with little tears in his eyes.
It has absolutely destroyed me; I dread to think what I'll do when we have an actual death to deal with. I'm hopeless with the thought of it anyway, let alone talking about it - I'm in tears writing this!!
He saw me have a little blub while he was stood there, flower in hand, and came and gave me a hug. He keeps talking about it, a week on, every time we see another Daff - "My Daffodil went to sleep. In the bin now."
Did I tell him the right thing? Should I have just gone and picked another flower and pretended for a bit? 