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life lessons from a 4 yr old

for those of you who don't know, the kiddos i had over the school year this past year (since i've moved to baltimore) aren't in my class for the summer camp session. this was really difficult to deal with the first day or so of camp. however, it has become easier to be with a different group of kids everyday. some of this is because my old kids are in the classroom right next door to the one i'm in right now, so i still get to see them. every now and then, i'll just go in the room to say hello and give them hugs and such.
which is what i did today just after lunch. as i was in the classroom saying hello, one of the sweetest girls from the class wanted to give me a hug. when i knelt down to hug her, she turned her head and her barrette hit me right on the lip. it wasn't a pleasant sensation, but it wasn't something that was going to send me for ice, either. and it was completely an accident. i picked her up and gave her a hug and when i put her back down, their current teacher said something about what had happened, it was an accident, etc. but when i looked back down at the little girl, she had heard the conversation, realized that her barrette had hurt me and taken it off so it wouldn't happen again.

as i was reviewing it on the way home, it made me think about a couple of things.
one: when we love people and we're in relationships with them, we're going to hurt each other. though it may be unintentional at times, it's going to happen. and we can't always stop it. we can do what we can to prevent it, but we can't always stop it.
two: when we realize something we've done/ are doing has hurt those around us, we should do our best to get it out of our lives. this little girl knew something she had had hurt me and, even though she'd not meant to do anything, she removed the offending article. without even thinking about it. she just got rid of it.

what if we really lived our lives like this? and i'm totally preaching to the choir, because i don't live this way. knowing that in our interactions, we may hurt one another and understanding that and doing what we can to keep it from happening. and then, in realizing that we have hurt someone, we just begin to fix the problem -- no hesitations or complaints -- we just get rid of that which has hurt the other person.

hmmm. those 4 yr olds. they're awesome :)

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