If you know me now, you know that I am a happy person. I love my life! I find skipping, and twirling, and giggling, and singing in my every day life! About a year or so ago, I was NOT a happy person. If you are interested, you can read about My Journey to Happily Ever After.
You may also know that about a week ago, I made the conscious decision to swap my family's drinks from our not-so-healthy choices to sparkling Clear American Flavored Water. You can read about that at My Summer with #ClearAmerican. Mission Shop and Swap Complete! It's been a hit at my house! We are digging all of the flavors and the kids that hate water, actually like this sparkly awesomeness! AND it's affordable! Win, win!
But with that said, the newness of our summer swap has worn off. I want to keep this fun and exciting for them. I want them to stick with this! All of the high sugar drinks they were accustomed to were not good for them. So how do we keep this fun?
Today I thought back to my not-so-happy days. Last summer to be exact. We, as a family, took a long walk down the seawall. It was HOT. I mean over 100 degrees hot! About 4 miles into the walk, we realized we didn't have cash or debit cards...NOTHING with us. Bad planning on my part for sure! Mommy fail! Our then 1 year old was fussy but ready for a nap and in a stroller. But our then 3 year old was walking, and she was hot! What to do?
B decided that he would run (yes literally run) ahead of us and go back to the apartment, get some drinks, and pick us up in the car. In the meantime, I would not so happily stroll my way back down the seawall with the babies. It was not a pleasant walk. There was a lot of fussing (from both Bug and I). And then, about a mile down the road, “it” happened. A woman, about my age with children of her own, who apparently saw our “pain” approached me. She asked me if we needed anything, just out of the blue, like an angel. I explained what was going on and she opened her cooler and grabbed out drinks for each of the babies and one for me! She made me smile, she made Bug smile! Bubby was just waking up and was excited to see a drink waiting for him! That woman was one of the people who helped change my life. Although I thanked her profusely, she will never know how much she affected my future! The impact of that simple gesture! She helped change my life!
Since then, we try to pay it forward as much as possible. It doesn't have to be a monetary thing. You can open a door for someone. You can compliment a complete stranger just because they appear to be having a bad day. You can share your toys at the pool. If the maintenance guy at your work place or apartment complex shows up during your lunch or dinner time, offer them a plate. Whatever it is, just do it with a smile! It does make a difference!
With this in mind, I woke up this morning feeling happy, and skippingly fabulous, while recalling that life changing event just one year ago, my first real pay it forward experience. We need to pay it forward again! We need to make folks smile, and skip, and twirl!
It's hot out there, we live on a beach, we have #ClearAmerican Sparkling Water! The mission was forming in my mind (not an exact plan of course) but the babies and I are loading up a cooler one day this week and heading out to make people smile! It's what we do best! It's what we like best! It's our favorite!
Random acts of kindness people...its what makes the world go round! You never know whose life you might change! Stay tuned to see all of the smiles we spread around the island! Oh this will be fun!
And I can't wait to share it with y'all in Part 2. Yes, the sequel! Until then, sparkle on!
Disclosure: This post contains a personal explanation of how our family teaches philanthropy and care to our children. This is an uncompensated post to provide foundation for “Part 2” which includes a shopping experience and giving mission that will be compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias which is a vendor for Cott Beverages Inc., the manufacturer of Clear American ® brand beverages. As stated, this is a personal post so obviously the opinions and ideas are entirely my own.
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