Drop, Drop......

A couple of weeks ago, the child psychologist that our son Garrett visits once a week (we call her Dr. Pam), introduced a book to him that has changed our lives - really. I was describing the book and transformation to a friend, and between mouthfuls of a delicious lentil curry soup at Kind Food, she simply said, "Sounds like something we should all practice."

The book is titled, Have You Filled a Bucket Today. With beautifully coloured illustrations, and simple text, this heartwarming story explains how each of us has an invisible bucket. Sometimes, when we are feeling happy, confident, special, included, our buckets are full. Other times, when we are feeling sad, lonely, frustrated, angry, our buckets are empty, or low. The authors teach us that we can fill other people's buckets in simple ways, which is signified by a drop, drop, drop.....or we can dip into people's buckets when we ignore them, are rude, or mean, and this is represented by a drip, drip, drip. Most poignantly, is the reality, that by filling up some elses' bucket, we fill up our own. There is a wonderful website with support materials called, The Bucketfillers.

This morning when I set Garrett's breakfast down in front of him, he looked at me and said, "Drop, Drop." This is a five year old. He gets it. I am one proud Mama. Now, whenever we go out about our day, we look at people and discuss whether they are putting drops in buckets, or causing them to drip out. Good practice.

I just have to point out the obvious, and draw the correlation to the dakbands. Talk about bucketfilling! In reality, this concept really sums up the dakband project from another perspective. It reinforces the importance of acknowledging, sharing, encouraging kindness every day, all day long. Become a bucketfiller, dak someone today.

Drop, Drop.......