A Red Bucket

Last night we took a family trip to Walmart. Mark's been gone so much with practice and games for the past couple of months, so the kids were really excited to go somewhere with him. Mark gave each of them a dollar and told them if we made it through the store with no whining or fighting (there's been a lot of bickering lately and I'm sure there are people out there who disagree with the bribing, but hey, desperate times call for desperate measures!) they could buy something that they picked out themselves. At the end of our successful shopping, the kids picked out boxes of little Christmas tree cakes. With Mark, everything is fun and exciting, so he showed them how to do the self check-out lane and had them insert the money themselves and then of course came the excitement of seeing the change come out the little slot. Jake was excited to put his change in his Ohio State piggy bank at home, and of course Rory imitates and talkes about everything that Jake does so she got excited about her Dorothy and Toto bank. On the way out of the store, Mark asked if they wanted to put their money in the red bucket instead. We explained to Jake how that money would help buy something for another kid who didn't have very much. I have no clue how much of that he understood. Most likely they were just excited to drop coins into the swinging red bucket (very cool!), but as they did, Jake yelled out "Merry Christmas" to the friendly man ringing his bell. My eyes filled with tears that he gave his little treasure away so easily. It was a huge reminder to me that it's my responsibility to teach these two little people about loving people (which is a new concept for me in life since I did not grow up this way.) Just an unexpected kind of blessing during my favorite time of year.