Giving is Great But That's MINE!

Him and I have done our best to raise Daughter with compassion for those less fortunate and a sense of charity and we've done pretty well as far as we can see.

Last winter every time we passed a guy in front of a store ringing a bell with a red bucket, Daughter would turn to me and hold out her hand.  She would gleefully drop the money into the bucket and smile.  I would beam with pride that my daughter took such pleasure in helping others.  I'm sure when the buckets come back out this winter Daughter will remember in an instant and wait, hand out, for the money to drop in.

Right before Son was born we had decided we needed to get rid of some things including some of Daughter's toys and we needed to get the baby toys back out for Son.  Daughter happily went through her things deciding which to hand down to her brother and which to give to "the other kids that don't have this stuff".  She would've given her whole playroom away if I hadn't reminded her that we weren't running out tomorrow to buy her more toys.

Yesterday a couple of guys from a local church came around to collect canned goods for the local food pantry.  Daughter followed me into the kitchen and wanted to bring the food out to the waiting guys.  She could only carry one can at a time but after Him explained to the guys about how we're trying to teach our daughter about giving, they waited very patiently as she brought them several cans one by one.  She turned to me when we had said goodbye and asked why we didn't give more.  I told her that we do need to keep some food for us to eat with a smile on my face.

Later at night we were sitting in the living room and Daughter turns to me and says, "We didn't give them any of my spaghetti-o's!"

"I know honey. I didn't think you would want to give them those.  We gave them some veggies, fruit cocktails and lots of soup though."

"But we didn't give them any spaghetti-o's?"

"No honey..." I say with a questioning look on my face.  I was wondering if she wanted me to chase these guys down to give them some spaghetti-o's just to make her happy.

Then Daughter looks over at the TV and says, "Good cuz those are mine."

GREAT!  She's good about giving as long as it's not something she wants.  I can't wait til she realizes we're not just putting paper into those red buckets!