Courageous Cub Keeper

At my daughter's elementary school, if you are given a "courageous cub" it means that you have been caught doing something good. It's their positive reinforcement system. They bring their courageous cub in to the office to show the principal and they get to pick out a special pencil. So far this year, Natalie has brought home 3 of them...and well you know I just can't throw them away!!! That would just be wrong. So I decided to create a little book for her to paste them into. Since the school mascot is a tiger cub, I designed the cover to look like a tiger.


The inside is made up of blank pages so she can add her courageous cubs as needed. As I was cutting and pasting the cover, my 4 year old Zander, was watching and asking me all about it. "Will you make one for me too?" he kept asking. I told him this was a special book for his sister, but when is old enough to go to 1st grade, I would make him one too. He really, really wanted to make one, but I didn't have time to sit down with him, so I just cut out an orange head shape and told him he could just draw the rest with his crayons.

With that I went outside to get some yard work done and after a while, Zander came out and showed me this:
It was the cutest thing I'd ever seen (you know the kind of cute only a mom can see!) It took my breath away because all this time I was out in the yard, he was in the house just working away on his tiger, using the left over scraps from my project. I could have cried!!!... I was so proud of him.