homeAthletes can start competing in the Special Olympics when they are 8 years old. Kayla will be 8 in a few weeks. I am very excited to get her involved!
The Night at the Battery included meeting under the covered tent area for dinner catered by Qdoba, followed the the soccer game.
We finally made it to our seats and at one point Kayla started to walk off down our row. I grabbed her arm before she could get to the steps and asked where she was going. She told me 'down there.' I told her she wasn't going anywhere by herself and she told me 'yes.' Little Miss Wants To Be So Big and Independent.
This whole time I'm still holding on to her arm as she's trying to pull away and 'escape.' I ask her why she wants to go down there, where does she think she's going by herself? Her answer, "Get ice cream!" I reiterated that she wasn't going by herself and then asked her, "How are you going to buy ice cream? Do you have any money?" "Yes!" she emphatically stated. "Where is your money? Show me." I said. She pointed to me. I told her I didn't have any money and then she pointed to Joe and said he had money.
So I let go of her arm so she could go see if Joe had any money. He pulled out his wallet to show her it was empty. Dejected she finally sat back down.
Several minutes later I took both kids to the bathroom. When we returned to our seats an older boy (I'm bad about guessing ages, maybe 13ish) approached me and said they (I was guessing he meant his parents) heard Kayla asking for ice cream earlier and they wanted to buy her and Lucas some ice cream. I told him that was very nice, but they didn't have to do that. He said it was ok, they just really wanted to do this for them.
I don't know if they felt bad for the kids when we showed Kayla we didn't have any money or what, but we could have very well afforded to buy them ice cream (with the credit card, we don't carry cash very often). It wasn't a matter of the money though - we just weren't planning on buying them any because they had cookies/brownies after dinner.
But looking in this boy's face and seeing the kindness there, this was just some genuine good deed that he wanted to do ... well I couldn't turn him down. I couldn't send him back to his seat by saying no. So I told him ok and said that was really nice of them. When we turned back to also thank the parents his mom said, "It was all his idea." What a sweet boy.
I still felt a little uncomfortable allowing strangers to buy my kids ice cream, because as their parents that something we can do for them, and we can afford it. I didn't want to feel like we were taking a handout.
It was nice being the recipient of someone doing a nice thing just because they wanted to. And my kids enjoyed their 'extra' dessert!
Santa was spotted at the game - there was a Toys for Tots collection going on that night.
Waiting for Qdobo to finish setting up for dinner.
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