Camp Kindness - Day Four

Every neighborhood has a Mr. Wilson. You know, the grumpy old man who yells at the kids to stay off his lawn. Well, our Mr. Wilson lives across the street and two doors down. (We don't really know his name.) I think Mr. Wilson's La-Z-Boy must be right next to his front window because if anyone even comes near his yard, he opens his front door and steps onto his porch. One day, C was riding his bike on the sidewalk in front of Mr. Wilson's house, and Mr. Wilson came outside and told C to get out of his yard. The kids are afraid to play ball near his house because they don't want to have to chase down a stray ball. If we're out for a walk, no one wants to walk on his side of the street. We don't know his story. We don't even know if he's really grumpy, but he earned that reputation just from the few times we've interacted with him.

Out of the blue, this week he waved to us as we drove by. I guess this gave my son a glimmer of hope. He wanted to take Mr. Wilson some cookies. So yesterday, I gave C the recipe for Monster Cookies, and we went to the grocery store. C pulled all of the ingredients off the shelves, scanned all of the packages, and even ran my bank card. With my help, he made several dozen cookies. (I'll be making cookies for days; the recipe yields 12 dozen!)

We took a couple of cookies to my mom today, since it is her recipe, and we'll freeze some for her, for my brother, and for my family. We have plans for many of the others as well. (I'll tell you more about that tomorrow.)  But we packaged up three of the cookies in a cute little bag I saw on Pinterest. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a pic of C with our bag, but this is what it looked like:

We've been talking about today's act of kindness for days, but when it came time to deliver the cookies, the fear set in. And the begging started. "Mom, can't we put it on his porch really early in the morning?" "Mom, can't you just give it to him?" "Mom, will you at least carry it?" "Do I really have to talk to him?" It's hard to be kind when you're scared. I told him that being kind isn't always easy. Sometimes, we have to just do it. He did, and Mr. Wilson didn't yell at him. In fact, he seemed surprised that we made cookies for him. He said "thank you," and we were rewarded with another smile.

Smile #4!