Buckets

It's hard to be a girl in third grade. Leila comes home with various dramas throughout the week, and the emotions spill over into attitude and disrespect at home, and it usually all comes out after she's gotten in trouble for something. A friend at school isn't forgiving her even though she apologized, or someone isn't including her in play and the like. I advised her to be kind and do something nice for her friend who isn't being very friendly back, and she told me about a book they had read about buckets, and filling other people's buckets, and how filling someone else's bucket also fills your bucket. (The bucket is full of happiness, I think.)
The next day, Ali said to me, "You look nice today, Mommy." I asked, "Why do you say that Ali?" "Because I want to fill your bucket."
So it sounds like lots of people are reading this book at school.
I was really wondering why he thought I looked nice, so I asked him, and he said, "You look nice to me. You probably look nice to other people, too."
A little later I heard him talking about the buckets to H. Then, "Do I fill up your bucket, daddy?" "Yes, Ali." "Oh. You fill up my bucket, too."
This morning he said to Leila, "You look nice today." Ali doesn't like to diversify in his bucket filling technique, though when I said this afternoon that I needed my bucket filled, he said, "I can help with that," and came over and gave me a big hug.
I told them yesterday that words weren't the only way of filling the bucket, and I think we'll do a bucket project over spring break next week. I'm going to cut some bucket shapes out of construction paper and put them on the pantry door. When someone does something nice for us, we'll put a sticker or comment on their bucket. When all the buckets are full, a trip to the yogurt shop would be appropriate- don't you think?