Bringing up my boys.

This past weekend was SO exciting for us.  Ha!  Chris had to work and I had to do laundry.  All day on Saturday.  Our washing machine's broken, and I was going to go to the laundromat but my mom said that was ridiculous and for me to just bring half of our stuff to her house and the other half to Granny's.  So that's what I did.  Everything was finally clean and folded and the kids and I looked like hobos, but I had to go to Wal-Mart for tights for Sunday morning.  Oh, the joys of having a girl!  Ha!  This trip brought back flashbacks of my mother buying tights for Lori and myself every Saturday when we were kids.  Memories!

The kids and I took the trash off on the way to Wal-Mart. It was Jordan's turn to unload and dump our trash in the compacter thing.  He did so, which he loves to do…seriously.  He loves it.  As he was climbing back into the car, a man walked up to our car and signaled for me to roll down my window.  I rolled it down about a centimeter because he was a total stranger.  What he said was, "Thanks for making your boys get out and do stuff.  You don't see that a lot anymore.  Good job, boys".

Well, that just made my day.  Sometimes a little encouragement goes such a long way.  I thought about his words the rest of the night… when we got dinner and Jordan brought over a high chair for his sister without being asked…when we left Wal-Mart and Shaun automatically picked up all the bags to carry out.  I'm so proud of them.  

I'm not saying at ALL that we are perfect parents.  We fail so badly with our kids every single day, but maybe we're doing something right, at least. I want my boys to be manly.  I want them to know how to treat a lady.  The whole southern chivalry thing.  In today's world, a gentleman is hard to find.  I feel for my single friends because the words I get from them is that decent men are few and far between.  

My boys are, well, boys.  They're inappropriate sometimes.  They burp and fart and laugh about it.  Sometimes they're disrespectful.  They're still learning.  It's easy to pick on all they do that's wrong but this man, this complete stranger, made me stop and take a longer look at all of the good things they're doing.  

I'm thankful for that.