December 7, 2006 - Thursday
Through an email exchange with the town Conservation Administrator I learned yesterday that, contrary to my fears that the boys were seen as an annoyance at the meeting Tuesday or that their whispering was disturbing to the group, when the boys and I left the meeting after the last formal hearing, but a little before all of the business was finished "everyone" commented on how wonderfully well-behaved Harry and Jeremy had been. That is, of course, very nice to hear and it seemed like something that I needed to share with the boys. For emphasis, I waited until today after Harry's drum lesson.

There's a McDonalds that was can pass if we go a certain way home from the music school and if we go that way the boys will, almost without fail, ask if we can go there for dinner. Usually the answer is "no" because mommy's coming home from a different direction. Today, with mommy out of town for the week, I sat the boys down in a practice room at the music school after we finished packing up Jeremy's cello and said I needed to talk to them about something. It went something like this:

"I heard that we all left the meeting the other night that everyone said how well you two boys behaved and how respectful you were at the meeting so that the other people could talk and do their business. I wanted you boys to know that because most of the time when you hear about stuff it's about the stuff you've done wrong. And maybe that might make you think that people only notice the bad stuff, but it's not true. They notice the good stuff, too, even if you don't hear about it. Those people noticed how good you are and so I wanted you to know about it. And way do you think it's important what those other people think?"
"Because we were responsible?" answered Harry.
"Well, yes, but it's more than that. Remember how we were talking about promises the other night (reading from Harry's new Cub Scout manual) and how important it is to keep your promises so people think good things about you and trust you? Well, this is kind of the same thing. People think things about you whether they tell you or not and whether you know about it or not and now, since you boys were so good, there are a bunch of people out there who think, gee, Harry and Jeremy are pretty good kids. And next time you see one of them they'll be more likely to trust you and what to be nice to you. And that's very good, do you understand what I mean?"
"Yeah." I hope they do at least a little.
"So, you know what I think we should do?"
"What"
"Go to dinner."
"At McDonalds?" Jeremy picked up on it right away.
"Yeah."
"Yaaay!" Jeremy jumped up and hugged me and Harry danced around and we went to McDonalds and played in the playland and even got a few tokens for the Star Wars arcade game.


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