Taking the Initiative

I have come to realize over the past few months how incredibly important it is to take initiative. I can't just sit back and lament that things are not the way that I want them to be. This is especially true as a homeschooling mother. If I want my kids to have friends, I have to take the initiative. If I want them to learn about something, I need to make the calls to create learning opportunities for them. I am just learning how to do this, and I am 36 years-old.

Apparently, Eli has been given this gift from heaven. He is the kind of kid to take the initiative. I realized this today because of an incident at church. About a month ago, Eli got a new Sunbeam teacher. And unlike the old teacher, this one does not bring snacks. Or at least, she has yet to bring snacks for the class.

Eli made sure to tell us the very first week that there were no snacks. This was again reported to us last week as well. And this morning when we woke up to go to church, Eli didn't want to go because he knew he would not be getting a snack. Rinar made sure to pack some pretzels and gummy snacks for sacrament meeting, so the kid would be well-fed and able to endure the third hour snackless Sunbeam class.

But when Eli saw the bag of snacks Dad brought for him, he had a better idea. He decided to save the bag and give it to his teacher so that everyone in the class could have snacks. As soon as sacrament was over, he went straight to her with the bag. 

Talk about taking matters into his own hands. Now, every kid in the class got a snack!

 Apparently, this has been weighing heavily on his mind, because at his brothers' violin/viola recital today he wanted to load up on broccoli and crackers for next week's Sunbeam class. You can never be too prepared, I guess.