Last night we watched The Polar Express, so this morning my 4-year old asked to play with his Polar Express train. Two years ago that was his Christmas present, and it was put away in the basement. My response was that I wasn't sure where it was in the basement, so we couldn't play with it. With that answer in mind he asked to talk to Daddy. I called him at work, and he explained that he didn't know where it was either. To keep everyone in a happy mood, and to start the day off right we all trekked to the basement to look.
Surprisingly, it was in the second plastic tub we looked in. Even more surprising was that the boys held the flashlights and moved tubs for me. They even offered to carry everything upstairs, which they did with a little help.
The boys started putting the track together, while I searched the junk drawer for a screwdriver. The engine and controller needed new batteries. As I was in the middle of unscrewing the tinies screws possible someone knocked on the back door. I answered it, and it was an Alliant Energy worker saying he was there to change the batteries in our meter. He said the power would be out for about 30 seconds. I said okay, shut the door, and then realized that we were both doing the same thing.
I told the boys that an electric man was here to change a battery, and I asked them if they thought he would like a donut. (Yes, the donuts from Saturday.) We had one donut left in the box just for the electric man. My 3-year old gladly took the box to him, and showed him the donut. He told him all about The Polar Express. My 4-year old needed a little pushing to get out there. The boys yelled thank you and ran back in the house.
If we were not doing the 12 days of thanksgiving it would not have occurred to me to give a complete stranger a donut, much less have my sons talk to him. It's not hard to find nice things to do for other people you just have to be in that mindset.
Note: everything was safe talking to this stranger. We didn't leave the porch and buses were dropping kids off at school right across the street.
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