Skittles

This morning Daniel told me he had to bring a bag of Skittles to school for their 100th day of school project. At first I grumbled about having to leave the house early to stop by the store and unload all 4 kids just to grab a bag of stinkin' Skittles. But, then I thought maybe this would make an excellent learning experience for Daniel. He is 7 now and I have been trying to let him in on some older kid stuff like taking the garbage cans to the street, getting the mail, cutting veggies, filling pots with water and putting them on the stove, etc. So, I pulled up to the grocery store and luckily got a spot right in front of the door (not Wal-Mart, just the small local grocery store so I knew it would be an easy experiment) then I explained to him that the candy was on the first isle which I could see through the door, told him what to get and handed him a few dollars. I made sure to tell him which line to go through. Then, I stood at the door (looking like a dorky mom almost in tears because my first baby is growing up) for extra encouragement and to watch my other kids in the car. Daniel had a HUGE goofy toothless smile on his face the whole time. The cashier recognized me standing at the door since I am at that store on a much too frequent basis. She was great guiding Daniel through the payment process. The other shoppers all smiled at him and said encouraging words to him. It was adorable! When he was done he did a double fist pump in the air and shouted "I really did it Mom!" Apparently he enjoyed the experience so much he was going to write about it during journal time at school. Its amazing to me how something that was at first so annoying and filled me with frustration turned out to be the highlight of my day.