Trophies

Bryant has taken up widdling.. you know like carving wood or in this case, soap. Recently, he presented me with this trophy that he created without me knowing it. I thought he was outside widdling a stick but instead he was creating this "Best Mom Award" from a bar of Zest. How sweet is that? (On a side note, I am such a believer in the 5 Love Languages and clearly one of Bry's top languages is "Gift Giving". For an 8 year-old, this is quite a gift, even if it did come out of a box in the linen closet.)

As much as I appreciated his shower-fresh token and the lofty title he gave me, I appreciated even more a conversation that happened between us earlier this week. It went something like this:

Bry: Mom, I think you mispelled that word. 'Sign' is spelled, S-I-G-H-N
Me: I think you might be thinking of the word 'sight'.
Bry: No Mom, when I learned how to spell 'sign' in 2nd grade, it had an 'H' in it.

At this point we began to teeter on arguing because he was pretty certain he had learned to spell it with an 'H'. As I was reaching for Webster's Dictionary, I was getting a little irritated but still kept my cool. I remembered this too could be a teachable moment. Then, the neatest thing happened. He completey stopped himself in his tracks and changed his entire demeanor. This is what he said...

Bry: I'm sorry, Mom. I'm not going to argue with an adult. You've completed all the grades and I'm just in 3rd grade. I believe you.

That's it? I didn't even have to talk with him about this first. He showed such maturity and completely made my day. If you know how strong-willed Bry can be, you know what a big step this is for him.

I couldn't have been more proud of that kid! That, to me was a trophy of a moment.