Gettin' schooled...
Last week Kate and I learned a tough lesson. Kate's one job every day is to clean out her school bag. Quite frankly I have grown tired of reminding her a dozen times a day to do this job so I finally quit asking. As the days passed by, the contents of Kate's backpack grew. I knew there could be something important hiding in those stacks but I held my tongue and waited for her to complete the job on her own. After a week's time she finally announced she was going to clean out her bag. And sure enough deep inside her bulging bag was a sign-up sheet for parents to send a May Day basket to their child at school. Kate cleaned out her bag on April 30th and the due date to return the forms was long past.
Thanks to her new found reading skills she quickly realized what she had missed out on. There were of course tears but she rebounded fairly quickly, disappeared upstairs and came back down 20 minutes later. Instead of sobbing in her room she had used that time to make a May Day basket for me. My heart broke into a million pieces for her when I realized she wouldn't receive a May Day basket at school like all of the other kids, but it shattered again when she turned her grief into a gift for me.
That night after Kate went to bed I mentally tossed around the idea of calling the woman in charge of the May Day baskets. Maybe there was some way she could make a last minute basket for my sweet, little Kate. And if that emergency basket couldn't be made then maybe I'd make one for her and deliver it to school. Despite my heart ache I knew I couldn't do any of those things. I had to let her learn her lesson. And as I watched Kate happily bounce into school on May 1st with her long, blonde hair swinging, her pastel pink backpack bouncing and an innocent smile stretched across her cheeks my heart again broke because I knew she was going to have to watch all of the other students receive baskets while she sat empty handed. Ugh, my stomach turns just thinking back to it.
When 3:10 p.m. rolled around that day I picked up Kate and she bounced out of school like she does every other day. A mysterious person gifted everyone in her class a May Day basket. She was thrilled...until she tripped and spilled her basket onto the grass. Thankfully she had already chowed down on most of the basket's contents but again that sad little look on her face made my stomach twist. I am grateful Kate rebounds quickly.
Since April 30th Kate has done a fairly good job of remembering to clean out her bag. Sometimes she only partially cleans it out and other days she is completely thorough. Kate has apparently learned her lesson to complete the one daily job she has been assigned and I have learned that it is best to not allow my guilt to stand in the way of Kate learning about life. But boy oh boy, is that a gut wrenching lesson to teach.
Thanks to her new found reading skills she quickly realized what she had missed out on. There were of course tears but she rebounded fairly quickly, disappeared upstairs and came back down 20 minutes later. Instead of sobbing in her room she had used that time to make a May Day basket for me. My heart broke into a million pieces for her when I realized she wouldn't receive a May Day basket at school like all of the other kids, but it shattered again when she turned her grief into a gift for me.
That night after Kate went to bed I mentally tossed around the idea of calling the woman in charge of the May Day baskets. Maybe there was some way she could make a last minute basket for my sweet, little Kate. And if that emergency basket couldn't be made then maybe I'd make one for her and deliver it to school. Despite my heart ache I knew I couldn't do any of those things. I had to let her learn her lesson. And as I watched Kate happily bounce into school on May 1st with her long, blonde hair swinging, her pastel pink backpack bouncing and an innocent smile stretched across her cheeks my heart again broke because I knew she was going to have to watch all of the other students receive baskets while she sat empty handed. Ugh, my stomach turns just thinking back to it.
When 3:10 p.m. rolled around that day I picked up Kate and she bounced out of school like she does every other day. A mysterious person gifted everyone in her class a May Day basket. She was thrilled...until she tripped and spilled her basket onto the grass. Thankfully she had already chowed down on most of the basket's contents but again that sad little look on her face made my stomach twist. I am grateful Kate rebounds quickly.
Since April 30th Kate has done a fairly good job of remembering to clean out her bag. Sometimes she only partially cleans it out and other days she is completely thorough. Kate has apparently learned her lesson to complete the one daily job she has been assigned and I have learned that it is best to not allow my guilt to stand in the way of Kate learning about life. But boy oh boy, is that a gut wrenching lesson to teach.
A family game of 'golf' while we wait for the weather to warm outside...
Comments