Monday's Moment of Wisdom - Pearl Number 52

Monday 16 September 2013

"The greatest gifts you can give your children is the roots of responsibility 
and the wings of independence"  - Denis Waitley

Last Friday was Miss LC's 3rd Birthday, it's been a some what chaotic year so myself and her dad didn't really think about what we would do to celebrate too much until the end of the summer. I had kept thinking though about this little idea of incorporating 3 good things we could do with her that would be for the benefit of others, one for every year she had been with us. I talked it over with he other half we both agreed it would be a special way to spend her birthday.


Now the idea for this actually came from another lady who I had come across on Twitter called Robyn Bomar, a few years ago Robyn had the idea herself to do 38 random acts of kindness on her 38th Birthday, from this she created The Birthday Project, you can read more about what she got up to and her charity on the website, which I would urge you to do, she is an amazing lady and her story was our inspiration!


So here is LC's story and what she got up to - myself and her dad decide the week before what her random acts of kindness would be so we could get organised as we wanted them to be meaningful for her. We printed off information cards from The Birthday Project website so we could explain to others what we were doing and then I stapled my blog details to them so everyone who was a part of the day could follow her story.


The day before on the Thursday, LC and I spent the afternoon baking cakes and the first stop on the Friday morning was her nursery. We made around 40 cakes in the end, enough for all the children and the amazing ladies who take care of her when she is there. We our so grateful for the hard work and the wonderful job they do looking after her, everyone was very pleased to see her and get to taste one of our yummy cakes.


After lots of cuddles and Happy Birthdays were said we moved on to the next stop - originally we wanted to go to the children's hospital, LC had stayed in there once when she was younger and we wanted to show our appreciation of how brilliantly they took care of us but we only had teddies and books to donate and they need stuff that could be sterile. We did have however a lot of junk round the house so in the end she helped us to take that to the charity shop. She carried her old nappy bin and when we got to the shop we explained to the lovely lady that it was her birthday and what we were doing and handed her one of our card, she was delighted and so was LC.


We jumped in to the car again and headed to our nearest Starbucks, anyone who knows our family well knows that mummy is a big Starbucks fan and consequently so is Miss LC! Once there we ordered coffee and cake and then asked the baristas to help us out. We explained what we were doing and then bought a gift card, asked if they could save it along with the information card and then give the gift card to the next mum and baby that came in so they could have coffee on us! They were thrilled at what we doing and more than happy to oblige, they all made a fuss over LC and wished her Happy Birthday, I have to say we were so impressed with their attitude and the support we got from the team there, it really made the last random act of kindness so special. We drank and ate our treats and then said our goodbyes to everyone but we never saw a mum and baby come in while we were there so we never got to see who would benefit from it which we felt sad for but knew it would brighten their day and if any of the staff or lady who got the card are reading please do get in touch and let us know what happened!

So then we were done and it felt a bit sad that it was over, truth be told we could of done it all day, it was the loveliest feeling giving back to others and although LC didn't entirely understand what we were doing she loved taking part and myself and her dad really got a buzz from giving back, my biggest hope is that as she gets older she will understand and take pride in what we are doing. Our plan is to do it with her each year now, LC is so loved and had A LOT of toys and wonderful present which we are truly grateful for but we want to teach her the importance of giving herself and that a special day for her can also be a special day for others too. What was also nice is that others got in touch and told us about random acts of kindness they had done so it seemed we inspired a few others! LC went on to enjoy the rest of her birthday, we took her shopping and out for lunch and had a family tea party with grandparents, aunties and her cousin in the afternoon.

We would like to thank everyone who took part in her birthday and helped us to make it a success and we hope they enjoyed being involved in her random acts of kindness. I hope to that our adventures have inspired others to give something back to others too, it's amazing when you see how one little thing can brighten another's day! Do get in touch and let me know about your random acts of kindness too!








3 comments:

  1. Awww. That all sounds amazing! What a wonderful birthday adventure! :-)

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  2. This is such a thoughtful beautiful thing to do, I wonder what the other mum would say, I am going to look into this more for my 38th Birthday next monday. Thanks for joining in #BirthdayLinkup

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  3. What a wonderful thing to do, so kind and caring and must be rewarding too

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