My Tree!

One bad thing about kids sledding down the hill next to our house is that the fence around the water reserve in back of our house always ends up getting damaged or broken. A lot of the kids don't like to stop the sleds, and they let the fence stop them. After enough kids run into it, the gate typically breaks. Luckily the city replaces the gate fairly quickly, but it's too bad that they have to replace it at all.

A day after the gate was broken, some kids were sledding down the hill, and they wanted the broken gate to stay propped open, so their sled ride could last a little while longer. After trying to prop the gate open and failing a few times, one of the boys snapped a thin branch off one of the trees in the pond area, so he could push it in the snow in front of the gate and stop it from closing.

I had seen him do it, and I made a comment about it to my sister. Katie was listening though. She was so mad that the kid had broken her tree. She cried about it. Then she decided to talk to the boys through the back window. "Excuse me, kids. You broke my tree. It's not nice. Will you fix it? I need my tree back. My tree! My tree!" (It's not really our tree. It's just one of the many trees Katie likes to look at.)

When Katie couldn't get over her upset, I told her the kids fixed her tree. She felt much better. However, when we went out to shovel again, she did walk to the rail and asked, "Why did you break my tree?"

You broke my tree! 

My tree! 

Oh no! 

That's not nice, kids! 

I'm so sad about my tree! 

Please fix it!