Kindness and Peace

I forgot to tell you about my Sunday School class on World Kindness Day.  It was such a sweet, sweet morning.  Ninja-boy was all about the poster we made together, coloring hearts and writing in the letters that I had outlined with his multi-colored markers:  Kindness Starts With Me.  Pay it Forward.  Sierra read The Grinch outloud to the other kids.  Little Anna made a greeting card for her brother because he had hurt his leg.  And Jeremiah, who pretended to sit across the room and be bored, was secretly making a card for his sister.

The card is folded four times.  On the outside it says, To Sierra from Jeremiah.  If you open it, it looks blank.  But if you unfold the paper all the way it says.  "Dear Sierra.  You are the best sister that a person could ever have.  Sammy is the best skunk that you and I could have have."

Sierra seemed unimpressed.  But Sammy got tears in his eyes when he read that later.

He knows he has the best boy and girl a skunk could ever have, too. 

Next month we will be doing the four themes of Advent for our Sunday School class topic. Several years ago, when Ninja-boy was still little and going by the moniker Pokemon-Boy, I had the theme of Peace for my class (Hope, Love, and Joy being the other 3, of course).  I thought it would be great if we could draw a big Peace Mural.  I got a huge sheet of paper, markers, read the kids a few stories, and then plopped them down to draw whatever they wanted for their section of the mural.  This was in the days before I learned about strategic seating charts.

Pokemon-Boy and his older brother were seated next to each other at one corner of the mural.  Apparently the huge sheet of paper wasn't big enough for the two of them, and some markings about peace from one of them slipped into the area about drawings about peace of the other.  A little tussling ensued, and finally, a full blown sibling fistfight was underway.

At least it wasn't my kids this time, I thought to myself, rather cheerfully.

The next few years I begged, whined, bartered and nearly sold my soul to get the other themes.  Hope, no problem.  Love, yeah baby.  Joy oh joy!  But don't give me no Peace Themes, please. 

December will be the last month I am teaching this Sunday School class on a regular basis.  I am giving it up to take on some other responsibilities at NCC, and another mom is about to learn the joys of this particular fine group of young minds, hearts and souls.  So when I realized I had drawn the Peace Straw this year, I decided I would toughen up and head back to the table. 

Any suggestions for projects are welcome.  I already have the seating chart.