The Weight of Responsiblity

Our scholastic book order arrived today. A virtual pet came with one of the books Lizzy chose.

She was eager to turn it on and play with it. She mananged to turn it on, and was asking me how to use it. I started going through the different things with her, such as feeding, playing, cleaning and health checkups. It was OK for about half an hour. She carried it around with her and occassionally chose to do something with her pet.

Then the tears started. "Mummy, I want you to turn it off". Unfortunately you can't turn those things off, so I said she could just put it in her toy box. More tears. "Why are you feeling so sad?" "I might forget about my pet. I want to call Daddy. I'm so sad and I want to tell him about that thing I don't like."

Oh dear.