Can we share?

As always the kids were blessed with an abundance of toys at Christmas time. We cleaned out their rooms last week and explained that some of our old toys would be going to goodwill so kids who didn't have as much could have some toys. We do this every year, but this year it sank in and there was a little trouble in the camp!

In the bag of Maddie's toys was a baby doll that she never played with but it suddenly became her favorite. The doll was removed from the bag, rocked and sung too before she gently placed the doll back and said it was OK to take it. She then started looking around her room and saying 'are you going to take my suit case too?' 'are you going to take my new Tinkerbell doll?' I explained to her that we were only giving away toys that she no longer played with and decided to go to Sam's room to finish up.

I started boxing up a Thomas the Train set for Philip (Sam got a new one for Christmas) and Sam started yelling and grabbing trains. 'They are all mine, they are all mine!!' I explained to him that we were going to share with Philip because he didn't have a train set and Sam had two. A little later Sam came down stairs with 4 footballs in his arms. He said 'Mommy, Philip can have these too.' My heart melted a little and I thought he was really starting to get it.

That night we went to the mall and Sam exchanged a duplicate book he had received for a new Veggie Tale at the Christian book store. It was a very treasured item and he held it in his lap the whole time we were at the mall. When we were checking out from Bath and Body Works, the cashier asked Sam if she could have his DVD, he looked horrified and shook his head no. She proceeded to say 'Veggie Tales videos teach you to share, so I think you should share your movie!' (Obviously she had no kids to even say this to a child) Sam looked at me and clutched his DVD. Then he looked up at her and said (with a little attitude) 'I already shared today with Philip!' So that settled it and we went home to enjoy our new DVD.