Thankful for: honorable mentions

Miles came running to the car after school yelling, "I'm famous now! I won two prizes!" For the past month his school has been having a PTA sponsored art contest. Miles entered the photography category and the visual arts category. Today he found out his photography won an honorable mention ribbon. His teacher showed the class his projects and he was given a bunch of coupons for free ice cream, pizza, and a pass to the planetarium. Well this is just about heaven for a kid and he proclaimed it to be the best day of his life (he proclaims this several times a week. Unless something tragic happens, like we eat fish for dinner, and it is the worst day of his life). I decided to keep the excitement going by heading over to the good ol' Arctic Circle for his free ice cream cone after lunch. There, I let the kids play on the indoor slides. I love that playplace because unlike McDonalds you can see them the whole time, and you don't have to imagine yourself climbing through the germ-infested tubes to pull out a child that is resistant to leaving. Anyway, Evan was ordering Miles around and asking him to go here, go there, do this, do that, and Miles was more than happy to entertain his little brother. A little boy yelled at Evan for laughing when the little boy climbed up on top of a window. Miles put a protective arm around his little brother, and led him to the stairs to go down the slides, "Come on Evan, let's go play," and he patted the little curls. This is a proud moment for a mom when her kids are looking out for each other; even better than an honorable mention ribbon.