When a Child Causes a Parent to Cry--Grateful Tears

Rarely it seems is a parent made aware of something so honorable and caring done by her child--something done in such honesty and innocence. No praise was sought or even expected. It was an act of thoughtfulness, activism. And I don't want to shatter that innocence by highlighting it. Fortunately, my children don't read this blog.

Last week, Annika's teacher mentioned to me that she and Lauren had brought in money so that the classroom dwarf hamster could get looked at by a vet. The hamster had been limping and the vet bill was $75.

Annika talked to Lauren and her sisters, and they all pooled funds to help the hamster. The total was about $7.

Well, the hamster's owner was going to take care of getting the hamster cared for, so Annika told her teacher to put the money collected toward the school's Kids Against Hunger campaign.

This touched my heart. I was brought to tears by the fact my kids would care about an animal and then act on that compassion.

As for the Kids Against Hunger, I'm not sure how altruistic that was on Annika's part. I think she does care for others; however Annika is competitive, and there was a class against class competition to raise funds and she put all the money in her class' count. And the bulk of the money came from the youngest two girls who had recently received birthday money.

But overall, the whole thing is pretty sweet, and I had no idea. The girls said nothing of this to me at all. This gives me hope that they're going to turn out all right after all.