Whatever Wednesday: Recipe for Kindness

It's a beautiful thing when you can see life through a child's eye.  I want to help you do that today.  A few months ago my son's teacher (Way to go, Mrs. Wilburn!  This was a great idea!) sent home a flyer asking parents to purchase a book that she and all the kids in the class were making.  The book would feature original art work done by the children.  Sounded like a cute idea, but $15.95 sounded kind of steep.  Eventually, we decided to buy it, figuring it would be a great keepsake. I am so glad we did.  I was pleasantly surprised by the hard cover and glossy pages. 

The theme of the book was Recipe for Kindness and each child drew a picture and wrote a sentence about how they can show kindness.  The little ones wrote things like they can show kindness by helping up a friend when they fall, cleaning up a mess at the side of a road, taking care of our classroom, and hugging a friend when they are sad.  My two personal favorites: making sausage for my mom and making cereal bowls for kids who don't have any. 

My son's recipe for kindness was helping my mommy clean the house (can't wait for that one to start happening lol) and drew this great pic of himself helping me clean ( I'm the red one, pushing a vacuum cleaner).

FYI: I'm not really that skinny and my hair don't look like that ( well, ok, maybe in morning).

All this kind of got me thinking.  Kindness is something we sometimes lack big time.  The older we get the more jaded we get.  I think we all want to be kind people, I think we all think we are kind people, but that's not always true. We get so wrapped up in our own lives and our own problems, that kindness sometimes takes a backseat.   We hold grudges, or pass our bad day to others and that starts a vicious cycle of rudeness and animosity. 

Being kind doesn't cost anything except a bit of time. It starts at home and it starts with you.  Next time the cashier at the local Walmart is catching attitude, give her a smile and say thanks...I appreciate you. Next time you see your elderly neighbor lugging her heavy trash can to the road for pick up, get off your cell phone for a second and help her out.  I'm such a big believer in "the little things" and it's the little things that can make a big difference in someones day.  

And most importantly, kids learn by example.  They are the greatest mimickers of all time.  Give them something worth while to copy cat. Start a new cycle, pay it forward has to start somewhere, let it start with you.

Ok...I'm getting down from my soapbox now.