Ella Mae has been working on this book all year in class during her free time. It wasn’t for a grade or anything, just something she felt inspired to do. I knew she was working on “something” and her teacher kept telling me how amazing it was but I wasn’t allowed to read it until yesterday.

It brought tears to my eyes, y’all. It’s a story of a duckling who is different then all his brothers and sisters and just wanted to be like them. His big dream was “to be prettier then everybody else, but he knew that wasn’t going to happen…but he still was going to believe.” The duckling even went so far as to paint himself yellow and told his mom he had “new feathers.” In the end he “realized he was perfect just the way he is.” Ella Mae was actually was invited to Ruby’s classroom to read it yesterday, and she told the class “the world would be weird and boring if we were all the same.”

Ruby sat next her sister with a look of pride (see pic for proof????), and I can’t help but think how she has helped influence the way her big sister looks at life. How she has the opportunity to see the world through a different, more beautiful and authentic lens. How she also gets to see the struggles of being “different” and that it isn’t always easy. She takes pride in her little sister’s accomplishments and how hard she works to just do the little things, and I can see her learning not to take theses little things in her own life for granted. Here’s to all the beautiful, weird, different and even what some may call “ugly” duckings of the world. Never paint yourself yellow, you are amazing just the way you are!!!

Click here to see more pictures!

#ellamaeisthecoolest #lifewithrubydoobs #theluckyfew#downsydromerocks #rubysrainbow #inclusionmatters