Reid

(I really don't have a lot of recent pictures of Reid... I'm going to have my camera all in his face this weekend! This was his school picture this fall - pretty cute kid)


To save myself re-writing this... I posted this on facebook yesterday:

I admit I was the grey minivan holding up the drop off line this morning. Reid was SOOO excited to take a project to Qwest today but as he stood up to get out of the car the contents of his box fell through the other end of the box. There were like 12 sacks of little parts (luckily none of those were open). Typically I rush them out of the car knowing that holding up the drop off line is a huge 'no, no' in our rush, rush world. On the verge of tears he started picking them all up and shoving them in the box frustrated. I looked in the rear view mirror and saw the fourth car pulling up behind us and said "Take your time Reid, you're fine, there's only a car or two behind us." He relaxed, got his things and got on to school. Hopefully every car behind us was able to experience some patience too... but if not, my apologies that getting my son's day started in a relaxed pace was more important to me than making sure you didn't have to sit for a minute. Just a reminder that you never know what's going on in that car that's taking "too" long. [p.s. - I hate drop off too but the boys didn't want to walk to the bus in the rain and I gave in]

He was definitely on my mind a lot of the day yesterday.  Then as I was driving home from work I got an e-mail in my inbox from his teacher.  At first all I saw was the subject line of "Reid" and that it was from her. I admit, I thought the worst.  Reid certainly struggles with completing assignments on time so I figured this was another follow up on delayed work, etc.  I also feared that he might have gotten in trouble with playing with his project (it's a toy) when he wasn't supposed to.  I had already called his gifted teacher that day to confirm Reid's story that the "toy*" was approved to come to school.  This is the e-mail I received from his teacher:


Hi Carmen, I just wanted to let you know how helpful Reid was today. We got a new student in our class and Reid helped him in the lunch room, invited him to play at recess, and just took him under his wing. It was so nice to see. He was so patient and kind, I just thought you should know!
Thanks,
Sara


I was telling Reid at home how proud I was of him.  He said, "It wasn't anything big, I just wanted to make a friend."  Break this momma's heart!!  Reid struggles to make friends.  He's a bright little boy with different interests than a lot of kids his age but he still just wants to be friends with everyone.  Such a sweet boy!! Reid has been grounded all week and it was supposed to end on Friday night so I "lifted" the grounding last night which definitely made his day.  (And Ryan's because Ryan was excited that he could again watch Reid play Xbox)

* Reid's "toy" that he took to school was a Smithsonian science kit where you actually build a 4 cylinder motor.  He told me that his Qwest teacher told him that he could bring it in but I still called the teacher to verify his story.  He was telling me the truth and he took it in and they are building it in class.