Sweet Brianna

Last week Brianna decided she wanted to make something. She does this a lot. Usually the something is for another person. This particular project involved drawing grid lines all over a piece of card stock and then painstakingly cutting along the grid lines to create a bunch of little squares. She said that she wanted to give them to Mrs. Smith, her preschool teacher, to make more backpacks. I was like...ok....interesting idea. Of course in the back, or maybe it was in the front, of my mind I was thinking, "You are giving her trash. She's just going to throw it away, and I wouldn't blame her." I know, I know. I am such a kindhearted mother.

(A little background to this story: at their preschool they get little awards for doing certain tasks, such as being a good friend, reading quietly, paying attention during circle time, having quiet feet, and packing their backpack quickly.)

It took her a few days to finish, but she never forgot about it and would say, "I need to work on my project for Mrs. Smith!" When she finished she asked for a baggie to put them in and then put the bag in her backpack to deliver to Mrs. Smith at school. I thought nothing else of it until we got the preschool newsletter this week:

"Last week was a good one. We recently learned that our educational supply store no longer carries the little back pack awards. We had a class discussion and decided that we should continue to look for and acknowledge a child each day who earned that award, but instead of receiving a cut out, this child would be our line-up helper... the most coveted of all jobs. The system works great, but the high-light of my week was when Brianna came to school with a Ziploc bag filled with small pieces of paper she’d cut out for the express purpose of gluing them together to make some backpack awards. She signed in, passed up play time, and got right to work assembling a handful of backpack awards for her classmates to enjoy over coming days. Thoughtful kindness is one of the most celebrated of all things wonderful in my book! If you ever feel disheartened by the daily news, just come spend a little time with preschoolers."

When I saw that Mrs. Smith was praising Brianna, I started reading it to Brianna but couldn't get through it without choking up so I had to stop reading it out loud. That sweet girl. She is always thinking of others and all I saw was a bag of trash.