Nobody Wants to Be Bad; or, All Lost Luggage Goes to Paris

Grace started KG in VA and will finish it in KSA.

On the way home from school today Grace seemed a little sad, and I asked her why. She said that she had moved her peg in class. (Her kindergarten classmates move their peg when they are uncooperative or break the rules.) That doesn’t happen very often for Grace, and her face told that story. “I didn’t mean to do it—I was just at Minna’s table and I didn’t know I was supposed to be at the purple table. Then the teacher got mad, and she didn’t know that it was just an accident,” Grace groaned. “I don’t want to be bad, but sometimes I just am!”  

I assured Grace that I feel that way sometimes too. It’s just part of life. Last week, for instance, I didn’t mean to fail to get a receipt when I handed over the baby’s car seat at the airplane. Nor did I mean to forget to label the car seat with any identifying info at all.

I’m a seasoned traveler—I really should know better. But at that moment, without intending to be a bad traveler, that’s exactly what I was. And life unforgivingly moved my peg backward: that car seat is now sitting anonymously in some warehouse in Rome or New York or maybe Paris (that’s where the lost-luggage black hole is, so I’m told). I have no doubt but that I’ll never see it again.

So chin up, my little kindergartener, you’re bound to be bad over and over again in life. As long as you learn from your mistakes, every bad move will make you a little better as you go.