The little dude is becoming a little man ... and a nice little man at that

Seeing as I promised more cheer this week, it worked out perfectly that my little dude took time out of his otherwise very active schedule to shine two separate rays of sunshine into my life this past week ... my kids are constantly making me happy but sometimes they do something extraordinary without even knowing it and those are the moments when, as parents, I feel as though we are leading them down the right path - I wish every parent moments like these and advise that you keep them in the vault for when your kids are driving you INSANE!!!

Little dude moment #1

There is this boy in our neighbourhood that comes around to our house every once in awhile to play with the little dude, and to this kid it has always been a "friendship of convenience". In life we have many of these types of friendships and it is okay, but when you are a six year old little dude and you think all friendships are genuine it can suck pretty hard when you are passed over for a "better" or "cooler" friend.

So over time, my little dude has learned the hard way that this boy is not his BFF and chances are that if this kid comes calling he is either going to ditch the little dude or say something mean and go (or be sent) home early, hence leaving the little dude alone in the yard or basement with tears rolling down his face. (I know this sounds pretty harsh and I realize that this kid is not malicious in his intent - in fact he has a great set of manners and always calls his mom to let her know where he is - but he does not really want to be friends with the little dude, he just fills the time he has to wait for his other friends by coming to our house)

At the end of the school year we got some new neighbours who happened to have two kids that are the same age as our kids and the little dude also started his summer of fun - sports camps every week with other sport-loving kids his own age. As a result, as the summer has progressed we have noticed a change in the little dude's confidence. You can see it when the neighbour kids come over and REALLY want to play with him (and monkey girl) and you can see it when the leaders at camp chant his name as he bursts through the gym doors each morning. He can feel that he is liked and it is a good feeling - in fact he was recently dubbed by a group of leaders at camp as the ultimate sports camp kid (please excuse the proud mama moment).

So to make a long story short, a few days ago this other boy came to our place with a friend, akid that he has often passed the little dude over to play with, and wanted to play. I was sitting on the front step watching the little dude practice skateboarding when the boys approached and observed the interaction from my afar without being able to hear what they were saying. A couple of minutes later the boys left and the little dude continued with his skateboarding - no tears or unkind words, they just simply parted ways.

Later that evening I asked him why the boys left and he said that really they were only asking him to play because they wanted to borrow his stuff, so he told them that he would rather work on his skater moves. Then he followed it up by saying, "Mom I don't think I am going to invite (kid's name) to my birthday this year because he isn't really my friend - do you think he will be mad?" I told him that it was okay to give special privileges (like a birthday invitation or lending a toy) to his special friends, so long as he was still nice to everyone else and that sometimes when you aren't nice you stop getting those types of special privileges, so he should keep that in mind too. He kind of nodded and went about his business, and I sat back and thought about how grown up he is getting.

It was something else to watch him process the fact that he didn't have to play with someone who wasn't nice to him just because the opportunity was there, and he could say no without being mean. I was especially impressed by the fact that he was comfortable enough with himself to do so and continue playing on his own. Sniff,sniff ... it seems that my baby is growing up.

Little dude moment #2

Yesterday when I went to pick the little dude up from camp, we were driving out of the parking lot and stopped at a crosswalk for two pedestrians, one of whom was in a wheelchair. The little dude looked up from his Nintendo game just long enough to see why we were stopped and said, "Geez, there were a tonne of those people around the College today" - he has been at sports camps at a local College this summer.

Immediately my back went up and I felt the need to go into a lengthy explanation about how it was okay for people to be different and that there were lots of people who needed to be in wheelchairs and it didn't mean they weren't just people like him and me .... blah blah blah ... yadda yadda yadda ... high horse, moral pedestal, etc.

After listening to my mini-rant (without interrupting)the little dude looked at me quizzically and said, "Mom they were both wearing the same blue and white t-shirt - seriously if you go inside there are like 100 people wearing those shirts!" And there it was, a big huge piece of humble pie served up by my six year old ... I was the one who saw the wheelchair, he just wondered what t-shirt club they were part of.

In conclusion ...

All in all it was a good week, my little dude taught me a few things and gave me confidence that we are giving him the tools to live well.

If you are wondering what has been happening with monkey girl stop by next week ... I tend to post on Fridays :o)