Kids surprise you.
Things that bother you don't bother them. Things that would make you do a double take they don't even glance twice at. Things that make everyone else self conscious.... they don't care who's watching.
Sometimes they just know what the right thing to do is.
Sometimes they just have a heart that's way too big for their tiny little bodies.
Your kid/s will one day do something that makes you so proud you feel like your heart is going to break because of it. It may sooner for you than it does for someone else. It may take YEARS. But mark my words. One day your child is going to say or do something and you're going to think to yourself "That can't possibly be my child, when did they get to be so amazing?"
Back in December of 2006 I worked in the nursery at the YMCA. It was a good job because I could bring Alanna with me. Well, one evening there was about an hour left to go in my shift when a little girl was brought in in a wheelchair. Now I say little because according to her mother, while she may have had the body of a 15 year old, she had the mentality of an 18 month old. She couldn't talk, couldn't cough, couldn't even swallow on her own.
Mom asked us to maybe throw a cartoon musical on for her. And to wipe her mouth. Due to the fact that she couldn't swallow, she drooled a lot. No problem. I was on top of it. Half an hour later, mom came in to check on her little girl. My Alanna, who was only 3 years old at the time, walked over to the other sided of the room with her. She climbed up on the footpegs of the girl's wheel chair and said hello. The girl grabbed a fistful of Alanna's hair.
Under any other circumstances, Alanna would have yelled and screamed and tried to runaway and probably would have lost a handful of hair. Not that night. No. That night she stood there. And she waited for the girls mom to carefully remove every strand of hair and free her. Without even a word.
Before the girl's mom had walked out of the room again, Alanna had picked up the washcloth and started to wipe the girl's mouth for her. She did that for the next 20 minutes. My 3 year old little girl. She was wiping someone's mouth because they couldn't do it on their own. The lady that worked at the front desk who had been standing at the doorway conversing with the nursery staff had to leave because she started crying. And one of the girls that I worked with came up to me and said "It makes you want to cry doesn't it?"
She was a tad too late.
I already was. She had to remove herself to another section of the nursery because she told me if she stood next to me she'd start too.
Alanna saw me crying. My precious little girl. She grabbed her sleeve with her hand and said "Come here mommy, I have to wipe your eyes."
That was my moment. My "She can't possibly be my child." It just astonishes me. Things that make adults uncomfortable, children don't care about. They see someone who needs help and they help them. Regardless of what they need help with. They might ask questions, but the answer doesn't stop them from doing what they think is right. Children are astonishing and amazing. And sometimes they make you so proud you don't know what to do with yourself.
Believe me. You'll have that moment.
Beautiful!
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