Why the neighbours artificial lawn reduced me to tears

This has to be one of my proudest parenting events to date and it all started innocently enough.

Will likes artificial lawn. He has declared it his favourite of lawns. He likes that it requires minimal maintenance and he sees the value in not having to water it and he finds it good to look at.

Last Tuesday when we left to drive Kieran to school I noted that the neighbours were installing artificial lawn.

Will: "When I am big and I have my own house I am going to use my money to buy me some artificial lawn. And I am going to use my money to buy toys for the children who don't have any."

Me: "That's really cool buddy. You might also want to think about spending some money on the children who don't have anything at all. I know a lady called Cate who made a house for some children who have no Mum or Dad. She helped them to get clothes, food, some toys and to go to school."

For the rest of the 20 minute round trip Will spent the time asking multiple questions about these things and talking about all the things he would like to do to help the children.

When we got home we looked at Cates blog: http://catherinebolt.com/

We looked at the photos of the children and talked about how they lived before what it must be like for them now.

This led us to Cate's Etsy shops where Will chose a Giving Bowl to purchase so we could give some money and also to collect some more money for "Cate's children".

He dictated a message for me to write to Cate:

"Dear Cate, 

 I think you are doing a good job. Can I join you helping children when I am big? 

From Will"

I explained that some of the money would go to the people that made the bowl and some would go to the children so we also just made a direct donation to Foundation 18 as well. 

While we were looking through the posts on Cate's blog I showed Will Cate's 8 year old daughter Ailish who along were her older brother Ash is a 'Wildlife Warrior' and they have their own site called Planet You where they work to educate children about wildlife and environmental issues.

While I got the library books together ready for another trip up the hill Will watched Ailish and Ash's video about Orang-utans and the effect Palm Oil production is having on their environment.

Before we headed off to the library Will insisted that we check our house for Palm Oil products. We found some and then had a talk about what we could do about it all.

Then we left for story time at the library. Another ten solid minutes of just what Will is going to do with his hard earned cash when he's big. And how we can write letters to the companies that use Palm Oil and 'just tell them to stop'.

After story time Will educated Janna the librarian/teacher who reads the stories:

"Palm Oil is killing Orang-utans. It's destroying their habitat".

On the way home the discussion continued. Will had some crazy ideas and also some very good ones.

I especially liked when he declared that one day a week he would take a day off and spend a little bit of money on: "doing something I think is fun, because helping people all the time would be very hard work".

He has from time to time over the last week talked about this and educated people he knows about Palm Oil and the Orang-utan habitat and most especially the children. 

Yesterday he was over the moon excited when he got a reply from Cate:

Hello Will,

What a lovely message to receive. Thank you very much and I would really love it if you could come and help me help all the little children when you are bigger.

I hope you love your Giving Bowl!

Lots of love,
Cate

And today after school he found a box awaiting him on the bench

After clearing up his concerns about how we'd get the money he collects to Cate and whether he'd need to send it in the bowl he declared we need to send Cate a letter and it will say:

Dear Cate,

I love you!

From Will.

******************

Dear Will, 

I am so especially proud of what an amazing person you are. 

And I am just amazed how sweet and kind your heart is.

Love Mum

 ♥