When you want to cry, I want to cry too.

I needed to write a new post this time because I was on the brink tears when I experienced what I saw today from a sad four year old.  Already feeling blue myself and on the verge of needing a good cry, my heart broke for what I shared with a child.  This week has been really bad for having students away sick with either bad colds and/or flus, so my little friend I'm about to talk about, makes me sure she's on the brink of getting either one of the two as well. 

When she got dropped off this morning at preschool, she really seemed to struggle in letting go of her father's hand.  Something you never, ever see from her.  Even on her first day of preschool with us, she ran into the classroom.  So for her to not want her father to leave, meant something was up.  Anyways, after some convincing from him, she slowly let go and walked into the classroom.  Not paying much attention, I followed her in and started to prepare for circle time.  Well, as I was grabbing my keys to lock the front door, I looked into our reading corner and this is what I found:

Back in September, we had made a family photo album for each class and have kept them in our reading corner.  So, our little friend was making good use of ours today as you can see.  But at first, I thought she was just "looking" at it, like what most kids do.  That's why I took the picture!  To prove that these photo albums really do work!  But, this wasn't the case.  After I took the picture, I noticed something was not right.  I stopped right away and just stood there, watching her.  And within that second, she looked up and tears were streaming down here face.  I walked over to her, got down at her level, and just hugged her.  By that point, I had my own tears welling up as I just felt so sad for her and wanted to cry with her too.  She told me she missed her mom and dad and wanted to hug them. 

Bring out the tissues!

After a good cry and a good hug, our little friend managed to get through her class after that.  Lots of times, I'm reminded why I do what I do for a living.  But today?  Well, the fact that when I was ready to cry with her just because, well, once again realized that I knew I was in the right job.