"Thank you for filling my Bucket!"

I love Kindergarten!  It is so fun to experience Kindergarten and see the things that a child learns when they are beginning their educational journey.  Since we bypassed this step with Kimball I'm experiencing it for the first time with Rebecah.  Not only does she learn academic things, but she is learning all about feelings and emotions and working and interacting with others.

Our school has an occupational therapist that works with the kids weekly and the school psychologist does as well.  I know my school didn't have an OT and the school counselor didn't come to our class on a weekly basis.

One thing that Rebecah has learned and in turn, taught our family is the concept of an emotional bucket.  She learned that we all have a bucket that is filled when we say nice things about each other or do nice things for them and it is emptied when we are unkind or say rude things.  In class Rebecah and her classmates practiced giving compliments and then acknowledging the compliment.  An encounter would go something like this:

Rebecah:  Sophie, I like your dress.
Sophie:  Thank you for filling my bucket.

I love how Rebecah's teacher uses the bucket filling all of the time with her students.  It wasn't just a one time lesson, but something that they experience daily.

After Rebecah learned about the bucket she met me one morning and said that I looked nice and I thanked her.  She then proceeded to correct me and told me that I was supposed to say:  "Thank you for filling my bucket."

I have thought about my bucket a lot over the last few months.  The smallest acts really DO fill my bucket.

A few weeks ago we had a really rough week...it was mainly Rebecah, but I took my fair share since I'm her mom.  Within 1 week she had head lice, a UTI, and a broken finger.  Anyway during this week I saw Rebecah's teacher and she thanked me for the bread I had given her the week before and told me how much her family enjoyed it, etc.  She filled my bucket.  I wished I would have remembered to say "Thank you for filling my bucket" because I was happy all day thinking of her compliment.  The other experience came from one of my nephews.  Sadly, my sister's family lives across the country from me so I don't know her boys very well.  My sister is awesome though about teaching her boys to pray for people in need.  Anyway, one of her boys asked when he was going to see his aunt and after talking about it Kristin realized he meant me.  I guess he has been praying for me and my babies for months--almost years--and feels ownership of me and the babies.  It just touched my heart that he wanted to see me and he filled my bucket.

It doesn't take much, but THANK YOU FOR FILLING MY BUCKET!!

And to think that I learned it from Kindergarten.  Have you filled anyone's bucket today?