Never Give Up

Today we came close to having one of those awful school-time moments a child remembers forever, like the time I made pretty homemade cupcakes for my daughter's 2nd grade class for her birthday.  Her teacher wouldn't let anyone have a cupcake because of the school policy (new and we didn't know about it) that said every food consumed by students had to be store-bought.  When I picked up my daughter from school, she had a tray full of uneaten cupcakes and she was in tears.  I walked her back to her classroom and the teacher apologized.  My daughter is nearly ready to graduate from high school and she still remembers how embarrassed, hurt, and sad she felt.

What happened today: 

Last week, my husband and oldest daughter spent a lot of time helping my son make a contraption for the class egg drop.  The goal was to make something that would keep the egg from breaking. The janitor planned to get on the roof and drop everyone's projects.  My son's project was big and fancy with a little suspension chamber for the egg in the middle.  The event was supposed to take place on Friday, but we had a lot of rain.  So they postponed it until this morning. 

When we arrived at his classroom, the teacher informed us something had happened to my son's project over the weekend.  We discovered broken sticks and that the chamber was no longer suspended.  It was tempting to give up.  I personally didn't know how to fix it, but I knew we couldn't give up.  The teacher spoke my feelings, "He'll be so disappointed."  She handed us some tape.  Trying to fix it seemed useless.  With scissors to remove things and tape to redo things, I left my husband fiddling with the thing while I walked with my son and his class outside.   I could see the concern, disappointment, and hope in my son's face. 

My husband was gone a long time.  I told my son that we might have to give up.  Just before the janitor started dropping the eggs, I went to find my husband.  He was pretty sure it was useless, that it wouldn't work.  Then we couldn't figure out how to get the thing up to the janitor on the roof.  We brought the project outside.  We watched everybody else's eggs drop.  My son was so sad when it was over.  He held his head down pressed up against me and hugged me for comfort while his classmates went to find out if their eggs broke.  I noticed the janitor came down from the roof and outside to see the results.  We asked my son if he still wanted to try dropping the egg.  He nodded and raised his head hopefully.  My husband explained the situation to the janitor and asked if he'd take what was left of my son's project up and drop it.  He agreed. 

The big smile on my son's face made it worth it.  The situation turned from devastating to joyful.  

An amazing side: his egg didn't even crack.