Proud Moments!

LONG STORY-If you want the whole story ie the girl story read this version if you want the nitty gritty details or the guy version scroll on down to the Short Story. :)
Yesterday was a long day. It started off with me leaving the house before 8:00 in the morning with 4 boys in tow (not planned but the littles woke up and wanted to go, as always.) I went by the gas station so I would be able to take Erik to his mandatory writing test that was out in some part of town I have never been to before. As I am leaving the house, I thought I should go back and get the paper so I will have the address just in case. Then I thought, eh I'll be fine. I looked on Mapquest. It is right off Fair Oaks and I am already running late; I just need to go. After driving up and down Fair Oaks 4 times and calling everybody I could think of who might have an idea of where this place was because nobody was answering their phone and 20 minutes of sheer panic, I found the testing site. (Note to self, next time just take the 30 seconds to go back and grab the paper!!!) Now mind you I could not sleep well the night before so I am going on about 4 hours of broken sleep. I then had to drop Jeremiah off for his classes and go to my MIL's to clean. Since I did not want to drive all the way out there again to pick up Erik just to come back and then drive way out there again to take my MIL to Winco, (same general way out there.) I woke up my MIL so I could take her to Winco after I picked up Erik to cut down on gas usage. Now if you know my MIL, you know she is NOT a morning person. I might have woke her up at 9:15am so that I would not have to make that extra trip all the way out there(Are you noticing a theme, yet? Add in I do not not even kind of like driving!). Actually my son woke her up, quite persistently too!! He told her she had to wake up and opened her blinds so the sun would come in thereby forcing her to get up. :) He does all this in such a charming way that you can not get mad at him even when you really want too! Just as we are ready to walk out the door, Taggy pees through his diaper. In his defense his diaper was on crooked and going up his "crack" but really? of all the the timing. UGH!! And of course there is not an extra outfit in the van. Just Great! I called my mom and thankfully she has extra clothes so instead of driving to go pick up my child I am now driving in the opposite direction to my parents house so I can put some pants back on the baby. I am so glad they live so close to my MIL much closer than driving all the way back to my house. As I am driving to my parents house, I get a call from my son informing me that he is done with his test early and to come pick him up. I apologize profusely and let him know he is going to have to wait because of the said earlier incident. He takes it really well and waits patiently for me to come get him. He is very understanding when I finally get there even though I am 20 minutes late picking him up and he is the next to the last kid there. We travel onto Winco and within 5 minutes of being in the store my MIL offers to pay for coffee if I am willing to go get it since she is exhausted and she could tell I was as well. (Like I would ever turn coffee down!) I went to the nearest Starbucks and get coffee for Linda and I and hot chocolate for the kids. Taggy finished his drink before we even left Starbucks! I then took the rest of the drinks back to the store and passed them out. Matthew did not have his drink for even 5 minutes before he dropped his cup thereby spilling all his Hot Chocolate all over the floor. Poor guy, he did not even get to take one sip of it before BLAM! all over the ground. As one could expect, he was quite distressed over the incident and while voicing this profound disappointment not too loud yet but working his way there Erik rushes over without any kind of prompting and tell his brother he can have his chocolate milk. I can not even begin to express how proud I was of my son right then. (My heart was bursting a little OK a lot) I could not believe that he so unselfishly gave up his treat just to help his little brother feel better. He did not offer to share his treat with him but instead gave up his entire drink to help sooth his brother's feelings. It's time for a big AWWWW and a How Sweet! (It is moments like these that I treasure!) Now if you are still reading then feel free to skip the next part since its just the facts not all the details leading up to this treasured moment!


SHORT STORY-My MIL sent me to go get coffee while we were grocery shopping. I came back and not even 5 minutes late Matthew spilled all his hot chocolate on the ground! As Matthew stood there working up to a full blown howl my oldest rushed over and told Matthew he could have his chocolate milk. Nobody asked him to do this; he just saw how upset his brother was and wanted to make him to feel better. I can not even begin to express how proud I was of this thoughtful gesture of kindness.