Lessons Learned

Yesterday we were at the annual Tamale Party put on by the Bay Area Guatemalan Adoption group. It's just a group of friends who started the group so our kids would be able to interact with families like ours. Anyway, there were a lot of people we hadn't seen for a while. There are gatherings in the summertime but we don't get together in the wintertime. And since the gatherings are just for fun, sometimes we go, sometimes we don't and sometimes we see some old friends, sometimes we meet new ones.

There was a pinata for the kids, actually there were 2 pinatas, one for the little kids which was a pull string and one for the older kids, which was a "whack it". My kids had only just graduated to the "whack it" pinata this year. They really are not used to whacking things and were scared of the noise and the violence of the whack it one until a couple of months ago.

So the pinata got whacked and out fell all the goodies. Marielle and Rico are not scurriers and grabbers. They look around, see a candy, pick it up, look at it some more, maybe put it back down, then look at another candy, ok, this one can go in the bag, then look, there is a toy, maybe I'll take this one. Well, you get the picture. For them, it's not about grab all you can get, it's about finding the right candy, the right toy.

So Marielle had maybe 7 pieces of candy and a really cool pen. It was one of those pens with a see through body and glitter in the body. I only saw one of them come out of the pinata and was really glad that she got it because she's really into pens. Then I saw her talking with one of her friends and she traded the pen for a piece of laffy taffy. Horrible trade. In my mind, a very one sided trade, giving away that great pen for a mere piece of candy.

I told her "no more trading" and walked away. Later, in the car, I told her that she really needed to pay attention to what she was trading, that trading a beautiful pen that she really liked for a piece of candy wasn't a fair trade. She looked at me and said, "Mom, it wasn't about the pen. I wanted to make my friend happy. And I did."

Thank you for that lesson, Marielle. I have learned a good lesson from your pure heart.