fill a bucket

This last week, Ashley, Jacob and I went blueberry picking at the local blueberry farm. We each had a bucket to fill with the bountiful blueberries. Jacob and Ashley liked to run off down the row and would often get out of sight with all the blueberry branches there were extending out into the rows which limited my view.

After not seeing them for a little bit, I heard Ashley say from around the corner, "Mommy, Jacob is helping me fill my bucket." As Ashley said this, it reminded me of a book I purchased this last fall called, "Fill a bucket" by Carol McCloud and Katherine Martin.

  

The book helps young children (great for pre-school age and early elementary children) understand the concept of adding to and taking from other people's lives. It talks about how each day, we have opportunities to "fill others' buckets" or to "empty others' buckets." It is a simple concept, but it seems to have stuck with Ashley. Ashley was even able to take it and let her teachers share it with her friends in her preschool class. Throughout the year, she has come inside to report good news such as, "Jacob filled my bucket. I was stuck on my bike coming up the hill and he came and pushed me up the hill." Or something like, "Mommy, mommy, I filled Jacob's bucket! I shared my yogurt with him." You get the point.

Anyhow, as we picked our blueberries, we once again were able to talk about the concept presented in this little book and how good it makes us feel to have our bucket filled by another. And this time, we had real buckets in hand to go along with the metaphor.

May your day be a day of filling buckets!