Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Instances of Kindness

Landon is 10 and I don’t know if that really makes his a “preteen” or not, but he sure does act like one. He’s caught between the stages of little boy and young man, and it’s a tough place to be. One minute he will be goofing around like a kid should and the next he’s moody and plugged into his iPod. It’s weird.

Ten years old isn’t the easiest age to deal with (though honestly I haven’t found the age that is) but I have noticed a real sweet boy emerging lately. I’m not saying that he hasn’t been sweet in the past, but when he’s so worried about being cool and accepted, it’s nice to see that he still has values and compassion for others.

This past weekend we attended a baby shower. The shower was for a cousin of Tony’s and the whole family was invited so we all went. Well, all of us except Zoe who was working. Anyways, as is normal for baby showers there were games to play and Landon was thrilled for the distraction the games provided. Landon also happens to be terribly competitive, sometimes to a fault. For instance, he will still quit a game if he’s getting beat, and it takes him a LONG time to go back to it because he will deem that particular game too hard and that’s it.

But, back to the story.

The first game was to melt a tiny baby figure from a piece of ice. Landon did everything in his power (with the exception of putting it in water) to get it to melt and his diligence paid off because he won. He got a big basket with candy and stuff in it and he was elated. The second game was a play on Hot Potato, but instead of using a potato we used a baby doll. By some stroke of luck, he won that one too. He was beside himself, but almost as quickly realized that he’d already won once and then seemed embarrassed that he’d won again. So, when the prize was given to him, he told the hostess that he wanted to give it to someone else. She couldn’t believe he was going to give up his prize and I was just super proud of him. He ended up giving it to a group of kids to share and I could tell he was proud of himself when they came and thanked him for the prize basket.

Today on our rush out the door Landon forgot his water bottle and snack. Fifth graders don’t have lunch until 12:50 every day so they let them have a snack around 10:30 to hold them over. Well, today was the first time he’d forgotten his this year and I told him at the bus stop that I’d drop it off to him on my way out later that morning. When I picked him up from the bus after school, he immediately thanked me for bringing his snack up to the school and then told me that three other kids forgot theirs today too, so he shared his with them. I thought that was really sweet considering it was only a small portion and I know he’s really hungry by the time snack time rolls around.

Lastly, his class has been earning tickets for a day of fun events tomorrow. There are 4 events and each one costs 10 tickets. Today Landon finally earned enough to do each activity tomorrow and he even earned some extras. Instead of being stingy with them, he found out which kids in his class still needed some and he gave each of them some to help them reach the 40 they needed.

I know that these things are just small,  but it makes me so happy to hear that he’s so kind to others. When he’s telling me this stuff he isn’t telling me so that I’ll tell him what a great kid he is either. He’s just filling me in on his day and unknowingly making me one of the happiest mom’s out there. As difficult as he can be at times, I know there’s a spectacular kid in there, and I couldn’t be prouder.

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