Its never too late to learn

I learned something very important from my husband last night. I will always be in his debt for this....because it has made me think, and it has made me want to strive harder to be the bigger person.

Last night, I made dinner...and lets just say, it didn't turn out. haha Peter got home and said, hey, lets go get Wendy's! :) So we loaded the kids up in the car and headed to Wendy's to get a bite to eat for FHE. We had our food and we were teasing Elsje and having a good time with her while we ate. Pretty soon she began to "squeal" in delight...it was pretty loud so we tried not to make it so fun for her....haha. A family with a couple teenagers and an elderly grandmother walked in. Everytime Elsje would laugh or squeal, the lady looked over at us and glared. It was making me pretty upset because Elsje was having such a good time, and we were trying to teach her to be more quiet. All of a sudden, Elsje just started laughing and squealed one more time, and the lady leaned into her family and said the most rude comment about my little girl.

Now, anyone who knows Elsje, knows she is a fun loving, cute as a button, friendly little child, she is mostly well behaved and just enjoys life. This woman really hurt my feelings, and I wasn't about to stand for it. I had a great comeback ready to fire at her when my husband came back over and sat down. I explained to him what had happened and how annoyed and angry I was. We sat there in silence for a min, and then my dear husband said, you know Niss, the best way to really get back at someone is to sincerely kill them with kindness. I thought about that for a min and said, huh? he explained that if someone was being rude, and you go up to them and instead of stooping to their level, find something you like about that person, and compliment them. They will have NO comeback for that, and they will probably feel worse than you do.

I digested that (along with my chocolate freeze thing) and decided I would do that instead. As we were getting ready to leave I decided that I would compliment this elderly lady on her beautiful silver hair which she had pulled up in a very delicate bun. It really was beautiful, and Peter mentioned to me later he was glad I picked her hair because it was obvious that she is a woman who likes to take care of herself and make herself beautiful when she goes out.

The time had come, I went up to her with Elsje in my arms and said, "excuse me ma'am, I just wanted to tell you that your hair is very beautiful. I hope you have a wonderful night." I turned to walk away, and she stopped me. She thanked me very much for the compliment and all of a sudden her WHOLE demeanor changed. Her face lit up, she wasn't mean, she complimented me on my children, on and on. I was SHOCKED. I really didn't know what to say. After I left, I met up with Peter who had already left, and told him what happened. He just smiled at me and said, kill em with kindness.....

I love my husband, and for this experience, I'll always feel indebted to him.

As my friend Annie Lewis would say, "thanks you" Peter.

niss