Heart of Gold

Remember how I was saying that someone stole Connor's scooter from our yard? Of course, this is sad to me for many reasons. One being how we discovered that it was stolen. Connor wanted to show his cousin, Manny, his Spiderman scooter. When we went out to find it, it was gone. The second reason being, that this is what Connor does while he's waiting for the bus everyday. He scoots. And lastly, we're convinced that it was stolen, not by someone who 'needed' a scooter for their child, but by 'kids' who were looking for something 'stupid' and 'rebellious' to do.

Friday afternoon, Connor & I are gathering up his coat and backpack. And I notice that he has a clementine in his hands. I told him that he couldn't take that to school, that it needed to stay here. He looks at me with those huge, brown eyes that he got from his daddy, and says, "I know. I want to trade. I want to give those people that took my scooter this orange to have & then they can give me my scooter back." (As I'm typing this, my eyes are welling up with tears). Can I tell you how proud I am, that my four-year-old has the purest of pure hearts. That as much as I worry about him ingesting too much violence or me not being the perfect role model, he has managed to see past the 'bad' of the situation. He wants to, offer up kindness in the form of a round, orange fruit. In a simple exchange. Clementine for scooter.

As sweet as his heart is and how simple and perfect the solution is, how could I explain to him that this wasn't going to work? That in, a perfect world, it should be the most perfect solution. And somehow I feel that I've corrupted that pure, kind heart. Just by merely having to tell him an unpleasant truth.

Hopefully, though, that won't deter him from wanting to spread love, kindness and mercy rather than, hate, hurt and anger.