Who can't recall the power of friends?  Friends who you once thought meant more to you than family. Friends--the only ones who understood.  Friends--everything was unbearable without them. I once dumped an entire bag of popcorn into a public toilet at a two dollar cinema just because. Why not? My teenage brain didn't let me think ahead to the repercussions. About who might have to clean it or any damage it might do to the toilet.  It was funny because my friend was there. We laughed together--obnoxious, overloud.

What did we know then? Not much, but we thought we did. We would have scoffed at the idea of the power of family. How friends weave in and out of our lives. Friends may understand, but they often come and go.  

Which leads me to the story of the cellphone. Jason's old cellphone that he charged back up and gave to River to play Angry Birds on. River has played with the Nintendo DS, a tablet, and Jason's cellphone countless times.  He is careful and usually River is an extremely well behaved child.

Bring in his friend, J, who I invited over, along with his one year old sister both to keep my kids company for a day of rest (mine have slight colds) and to give their mother a couple hours to pack for a trip. River showed J. "his phone" and they took turns passing it back and forth to play across the kitchen table. Meanwhile, the little sister is quite upset that her mother left her and wants to play with trains in the children's bedroom. So I follow the baby girls down the hall and help them assemble the tracks.  I stop periodically to check on the boys. Each time I go into the room, they are still passing the phone back and forth saying, "My turn! My turn!".

River is a sweet child with not a mean bone in his body or one so small, it would be like trying to grasp the wishbone in the game Operation. That's the upside of his personality. The down side is he impressionable and a follower. With his friend J, they are often rough and violent.  They need to be watched. With other friends, River will play peacefully in his room. J and River even argue occasionally--J yelling or sulking and River offended and confused.  

I thought twice that I should take the phone away but each time I checked on them, they were playing nicely and I trusted River (yes, a four year old) to be protective of this "toy". He had given me no reason not to trust him and that's the way I parent as long as it isn't something that could cause harm.

I had just returned from checking on them and they were suddenly loud. I yelled, "You guys are getting loud. I hope you are still sharing." Then there was a loud bang. I yelled, "What was that?" and got up to check on them. They were still playing and I wouldn't have known anything had River not told me, "Mommy, J. broke my phone". It was laying on the table in two pieces. I thought at first that just the back had come off, but then I saw the huge spider web of cracks over the screen.

I remained calm. I don't really get angry about broken things. I break things myself all the time. "How did this happen?"

Of course, with four year olds--you can never be sure.  They lie. They sometimes think by lying they can actually change what happened. But in this case, I didn't think they were lying. It seems they couldn't raise the volume so started sliding the phone back and forth between each other. It became like a game of air hockey--the phone being the puck. Then his friend took it a bit too far and flung the phone away from River, across the table and into the glass sliding doors.

Jason was livid, though not once he came home. Maybe this helped.

In his own words with the remains of his lunch on his face.