The truth...

After participating in the Gerber Canada contest, I was reintroduced to many lessons that I was thankful to re-learn.

#1. When someone experiences happiness or success, others too get to share in that joy.  Nobody is taking anything away from YOU by doing well.

#2. Support your friends in whatever they do.  Even if it's something you might be doing too.

#3. Be happy for the winner.  Genuinely really and truly happy.

#4. Don't be jealous of others - it's a complete waste of time.

#5. Enjoy the journey, not the destination.

I was so saddened to see a couple of my acquaintances flat out refused to support us.  It actually hurt me because it felt like there was this onesided competition developing for no reason.  That was the last thing I wanted to have coming out of this.  The 'votes' are beside the point, it was the feeling and the principle behind it for me.  You support your friends in whatever they do.  I know for myself, I would have been on that site everyday helping out a buddy, even if my kid wasn't involved - EVEN IF SHE WAS INVOLVED!!!  yah, it just made me think...

But there were also some wonderful surprises!  People that I hadn't talked to in YEARS were voting daily and sharing on their own personal home page.  It was such a wonderful treat to wake up to a message from various individuals just saying that they were backing us up, excited for us, wanted Scarlet's pic to do well.  That was so cool.

Let me re-iterate, for me, it was NOT the fact that these people were voting, in fact, I don't even know for 100% sure that they were, I only saw that they 'liked' Gerber Canada and therefore could potentially vote - it was the support and encouragement and excitement from them that made the world of a difference.

Ok - enough of this rant.  One last thing and I will let this go.  I will always and forever work on encouraging my children to resist the jealous ugly monster that will over-take their loving and positive true self.  Be happy for your friends, share in the joy and love one another.  Done.

FYI - the picture of Scarlet was #115 out of 87,157 pics.  Pretty darn awesome, but the best part about the whole thing were these lessons and how important I feel about teaching them to Scarlet.

Now I'm gonna go and make myself a peanut butter and banana sandwich.