Lessons from Children

I don't really blog a lot about my daughter. I usually don't care for people, and their long winded rants about how great their kids are, or how the doctor says that their kid is so far ahead of everyone in their age bracket. I always said that I would never become one of "those" parents. As long as my kid could walk into JK on her own power, I would be ok with that.

However, being a proud parent is something different. I'm not proud of my daughter (who will be 3 at the end of November) because of something she achieved or did before another kid as if it was a competition. I'm in awe of my kid's wonderful heart.

She goes to daycare 3 times a week for the morning session, and it has been an amazing experience for her to play with other kids, and develop social skills and to play nicely with others.

There are 2 boys in her class that I watch her interact with. One has Down Syndrome  and the other is another boy close to her age, and they both don't talk yet. Yet, it's the way my daughter loves these boys that makes my heart grow 3 sizes bigger. All she knows is that these boys "don't talk yet", yet she knows that they need extra special love. And she's always including them, hugging them, and introducing me to them so I may hug them too. I thought this was wonderful...

Yesterday however, I was really blown away...

I started teaching her a little American Sign Language when she was a baby, and she knows a couple dozen words. I was told tyesterday that she was trying to teach the boy with Down Syndrome sign language so that he could speak with the other kids. She taught him how to sign his name, and how to say a couple other words so that he would be able to talk with the other kids.

When I heard this, I was so proud of my daughter's wonderful heart that she wanted to include this boy, and that she wanted him to be able to speak, so she taught him what she knew to help him.

My daughter may not be the fastest to be potty-trained, talk, walk, crawl or any other race that we as parents subject our kids to, but my daughter has it where it counts. She has already developed that special inclusion in her heart for others who need more love than others.

And that's the best test of her young character that couldn't make a parent any prouder...