Loving your neighbor

Growing up in a christian home we always heard the phrase, "love your neighbor as yourself". Well, on Friday afternoon, I did just that. Every Friday, my youngest son and I go to my oldest son's school to eat lunch with him. Actually for me it's more of a brunch because he eats at 10:45 in the morning! When a child has a guest to come and eat with them, they get to choose one friend to sit with them and their guest. When lunch is over, I always walk my son back to his class. This is my youngest son's favorite part as he gets to walk in line with his older brother back to his classroom. He looks so cute walking with the other children!

This time on my way back from walking my son to class, I pass by a woman and her little boy who was probably about 2 years old. As I proceeded with checking myself out in the front office, I stopped for a few minutes and talked with the lady at the front desk. During this time, the woman and her son made their way out of the building. I eventually convinced my son that it's time to leave and we headed outside to our car. As I'm walking to my car, I pass by the woman a second time and as I do I hear her son screaming at the top of his lungs as she is struggling to get him in his car seat. I look over to offer the mother a sympathetic smile and I see that she is trying to strap this child into an infant carrier that has been turned facing FORWARD! I paused a minute wondering if I should say something as car seat safety is a pet peeve of mine, but I wasn't sure if she would understand me or why I was asking because English was probably a second language to her. I decided that I felt like God was telling me to ask this woman if she needed a toddler seat. To my surprise the woman said, " yes, that would be great." I explained to her that I had an extra one in my car and that it was more appropriate than the one she was trying to put her son into.

I walked to my car and unhooked the seat and brought it to the woman and even installed it for her. I showed her how to properly use the straps and told the little boy that this was his big boy seat now! The little boy was very curious to try it out and ended up letting us strap him in without a fight! I'm sure he enjoyed being able to actually sit up and see out as opposed to practically lying on his back as he had done in the infant carrier. The woman thanked me over and over and said, "have a blessed day" before getting in to her car and driving away. I felt very honored to be able to help her out and I hope that she does the same for someone else one day.