Be kind. No exceptions. Random acts of kindness on a budget

Friday, November 1st was Random Acts of Kindness day. And, gentle readers, upon hearing this I was less than kind.  The very first thought that popped into my head was "Is it really a random act of kindness if the calendar has to tell you to do it?"
At least my heart had the decency to be immediately ashamed.  As my cheeks burned I remembered that the important part wasn't the "random" bit, but the "kindness" bit.

That Guy and I try very hard to instill a servants heart into our children (and obviously I need to remind myself of these lessons too) but I felt like it would be very fitting for us to make the very best of November 1st- all on a very tight budget.

As many of you know right now I run a home daycare. November first was a regular care day, so all our acts of kindness had to happen outside regular business hours.

For Walters birthday his loving aunts has sent him a gift card for Toys R Us and I had promised him he could go spend it tonight.  Since we were going to be there anyways I thought I would focus our acts in that part of town.

Here is what we did.

First, Walter and I used some Sharpie Paint markers and decorated some stones.  We thought these would bring a smile to the face of anyone who found them.

Our decorated stones

"You are enough"

"You are awesome"

"Be joyful"

"sparkle" and "shine"

 We took our stones and left them, one by one, on the sidewalk during a walk to our doctors office.  We took a different route there and back to offer more people the opportunity to find the stones.
We were on the way to the doctors office to bring some books and puzzles for the kids section of their waiting room.

Some of the books we brought for the waiting room.

Walter and I wrote on some note cards and, using double sided tape, attached a quarter to each card. We made $2 worth of cards, eight in total.  Then we went to the mall and taped them to some gumball machines.

"Please enjoy this random act of kindness"

 As we were walking out of the mall two small children saw these cards and were SO excited when their mom said they could each have a gumball.  Hearing their joy had Walter literally skipping out of the mall.  This was, far and away, his favorite act of kindness.

We also popped into Toys R Us (so Walter could do some birthday browsing) and I left some diapers and wipes on the baby change station.  Diapers are expensive and this was only possible for us because Audrey was potty trained before she finished her last box of diapers.

"You're doing a great job! Enjoy this random act of kindness"

The total monetary cost to us here came out to $2.  The benefit to someone else, well I will never know.  The soothing of my own heart and watching the joy of giving beam through on my sons face.... worth more than money.