Moments that make a mom proud

Some days it is so incredibly hard to be a mom. You feel underappreciated and you feel like no one likes your cooking and all your kids think you are mean. It's times like these that I pray for patience and strength. Then there are those times that you wonder how your child became so good. These are the moments I live for. Yesterday was a prime example of one of those moments that made me so proud of my oldest son, Gavin.

I usually get to school to pick up the kids around 3:15 even though they don't get out until 3:20. I usually bring a bottle for Corbin incase he gets fussy and Jake usually crawls up in the front seat with me while Brody and Addie play the game "let's bang our heads against the backs of the carseats until the kids get out of school". So, needless to say, I like the boys to get out to the van as soon as they get out of school.

Aidan came out to the van right away after 3:20, so all we needed was Gavin to get going. We waited and waited. Just as I was about to call the office from my cell phone, I see him walking out of the school. When he gets to the van (by now, it's 3:30), I ask him what took him so long and he said he had to put up all of the chairs. I asked him if he got in trouble and he said, "No. The teacher asked us to put up our chairs and some of my classmates didn't do it." I told him that was very nice of him and asked him if his teacher appreciated it. He said, "No, she left the room when everyone else did." He asked if I was mad at him for being late and I said, "No, you did a really nice thing for your teacher." I told him that even though she doesn't know that he did that, God knows and He gave him extra points in Heaven. He reminded me that I was frustrated this one day when he held the door for EVERYONE in the whole school. Then I felt bad. Lesson learned: Patience is extremely important when teaching your kids to do nice things for others.