Oops! I forgot one...

I forgot to add one more to yesterday's post. This is the one that started me on the thinking path I went on, but somehow in my congested head, I forgot it when I began typing. So, here it is:

Yesterday we had our library day for school. Two weeks ago we borrowed several books and one Leap Pad book. The Leap Pad book was a song book of Mother Goose Rhymes, I thought it would be a lot of fun and would help me remember all of the tunes that I have forgotten since I was in Kindergarten. Anyway, both Princess TD and Little TD use the Leap Pad and we have 2 of them so they each have their own. Little TD was playing with the Mother Goose book when he did something very trivial and made Princess TD angry. Not just cross...but extremely angry. She grabbed the book he had on the pad and tore a page from it, wadded it up and threw it across the room, just to make him mad! He brought me the torn out page, crying that sissy had torn his book. I took the page from him and called Princess TD. We discussed the whole situation, what she did, why she did it, a better way to react, the whole thing. However, at the end, I informed her that when we returned the book to the library, she had to take it to the librarian and tell her she tore a page out and use her birthday spending money to replace the book. I smoothed out the page and carefully put it back into the spirals to try to salvage as much as possible, but even with a gentle tug, the page came right back out. On our way to the library yesterday, I reminded her what she had to to when we got there and she was ready to go. (Proud Momma moment here) She patiently waited in line for the librarian and when it was her turn, she explained that she tore out a page and that she needed to pay for the book. She showed the librarian which page it was and apologized and said that she was going to pay for it with her spending money and her birthday money. I think she was proud that she was using her own money, but not about what she did. The librarian looked at it carefully and said, "I think it will be fine. We don't need to replace it." Then she looked directly at Princess TD and said, "Save your spending money for something special, and be sure to be more kind to your books." Grace.

You know I find it very encouraging to see that when we take responsibility for our actions others are more apt to forgive.