A Cupcake Story

This is a cupcake story.

Yesterday I walked over to the school to pick the kids up.  After getting Ellee, we waited on the sidewalk for Christian's class to come by.  Since we pick him up at the school each day, he's usually right up at the front of the line by his teacher.  So you can imagine my surprise when Ms. Patterson walked by, but Christian wasn't next to her.  I looked around and finally saw him at the end of the line, holding a chocolate cupcake, and walking slowly with his head down.  

As he got closer, I could see him trying to hold his emotions together.  When he finally reached me, with his head down, he started to cry.  I quickly hugged him and bent down to see what was wrong.  My mind raced as I tried to figure out what could have been so upsetting that he would react this way.

"A boy pushed me and I dropped the cupcake," he whispered. 

"Oh Christian, it's okay.  No worries.  Was it on purpose or an accident?" I asked.

"It was on accident... but it's completely ruined," he sadly replied.  

I did my best to console him.  My heart lifted a little, knowing that the incident didn't have to do with someone being mean to my son.  Goodness knows, with all of the bullying stories that fly around these days, I wasn't sure what to expect.  

After hugging my son tightly once more (because as Moms we truly believe that a tight hug can fix most little things), he finished telling me his story.  

"We had a raffle in our class today, for the cupcakes.  A lot of my friends won the raffle, and then I finally did.  I was so excited.  I thought about it for awhile, because I really wanted to eat my cupcake. But then I decided that I was going to give my cupcake to Ellee... because I know she would really like to have it."

At this point, my heart stopped.  I teared up a bit, then felt my heart swell up pretty big with pride.  

"Christian, you shared Joy today" I proudly told him, "Instead of just choosing to make one person (yourself) happy, you made many people happy.  You made yourself happy by sharing, you made Mom happy and you made Ellee happy because goodness knows that girl loves a good cupcake."  

He smiled, and I knew that an important lesson had been learned that day.  We walked home, carefully cut off the "ground part" of the cupcake.  Ellee happily ate it and Christian was happy as well.

And that was a cupcake story.