my sweet boy

Yesterday was a trying day. Charlie was "acting out" that's PC for "he was being bratty". He had a rough day of bad behavior at school...Just randomly talking for no reason to no one except himself in class. (He said, I was just thinking about what I wanted to play with at recess, and I said it out loud instead of in my mind). He also had to move his "stick" from green (good)to yellow (warning) for distracting others while they were working. (He said, he thought of something he wanted to tell Faith).

Fast forward to the end of the day - we needed some groceries, so on the way home from school we ran to Hy-Vee. Charlie was starving so I decided to eat at the cafe there. Charlie got a piece of pizza and salad bar for me. For some odd reason, I let Charlie have a small kiddie-size cup of fruit punch, or more accurately high fructose corn syrup with red food coloring. WHY?? WHY?? WHY?? Why did I break my own rule of no sugar after 5:00? Oh yah - I lost my mind. The deadly combo of HFCS & food coloring turned him into a crazy, whiney, mess, who couldn't seem to control himself.

As a result of my stupidity, my little boy, who was already trouble for his behavior at school, managed to spend most of the evening in his room "thinking". At about 8:15 he had done his time, and we were sitting on the couch talking about the day and watching TV, and he got up and ran to his room. He came back with a beaded necklace that he had made several months ago and put it in his backpack. I asked why he did that. He let me know that a little girl in his class had been playing on the monkey bars and had broken her necklace that day, and she cried and cried. He wanted to give her a new necklace so that she wouldn't feel so sad.

OH my sweet boy...I've tried to hard to teach him empathy and kindness, and I think it worked. Sometimes I feel like I spend 95% of my time correcting bad behavior, but it's moments like that, that make me so proud! Thank you Lord that my baby cares about others!!