After last Fridays tragic school shooting in Newtown I have been heartbroken for all of the families and for the community. I just can't understand how this can continue to happen. I could not imagine if this happened to my children. My boys are 17, 9 & 7. My husband and I decided that the younger 2 didn't need to know about this. There is no need to scare them or make them worry. Kids grow up way to fast and I want to just let them be kids and not worry.
I want my kids to be kind, and they are for the most part, but I wanted them to learn to do things for others just because. So on Monday I decided that one day this week we would do 26 random acts of kindness to honor the 26 victims. Now the kids don't know why or even that we did 26, they just know that we did things for others just because it is nice! I documented my day through instagram and now I want to share that with all of you!
First I made little notes to leave behind in hopes of getting people to pay it forward and continue on with this mission of kindness:
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I started my day at Caribou coffee as I always do. I simply handed the cashier an extra $5 and the note and said please put the money towards the next persons drink and hand them this note. And the cashier smiled and did just that!
I may have plugged some expired meters, I later found out that that is illegal which Is very strange to me! I had never heard of that before. OOPS!
At work we have Keurig machines and KCups are $.50. So I went to the front desk and paid for 10 of my co workers, each of them got a little note!
After work I went home and got my little guys! They held doors open everywhere we went, they counted 15 "Thank yous" and many "Merry Chirstmases". They loved it!
We ate at Noodles & Co tonight and we paid for the person in line behind us. I think the cashier thought I was kidding. But she finally took my cash and my little note and passed it on to the next customer!
We had 2 random acts left to do and it was getting close to bed time. So we stopped at a gas station and I bought a coupon book of free car washes. We then went to a parking lot and looked for the dirtiest cars and taped the coupon and our note on the windows!
The boys wanted to stay until the people came out to their cars just to make sure they got the coupons!
It was a great day! The best part was watching my kids get excited to do good for others! I can't change what happened, I can not comfort the families who lost loved ones, but what I can do is teach my children to be kind and good.
Merry Christmas to you all! And please Pay it forward! Even just 1 thing will make someones day better!
Missy
