Pennies for the Poor

The book with its raggedy edges and taped-in-pages was open again. 
A by-now-familiar boy with big, sad eyes looked back at us.

We could tell he was poor.  Probably hungry, too, and he had no shirt.

The pain of being an orphan was written all over his face.

The book was held by another small boy with chocolate brown eyes.

Only his shirt looks new and his belly is rounded and full.

Determination to understand the magnitude of 

the picture scrunches up his face.

“Why doesn’t he have nice clothes?” he asks.

And, “Does he have a bed?”

An ache took root in my heart as I tried to explain to my son

that not all children in this world are like him. 

He has both a daddy and a mommy. 

He has food and clothes. 

And warmth from the cold.

 Some children don’t have any of that.

We turn the page.  

Another poor child and this one is hungry.

“Why don’t they buy food?”

They have no money.  

No piggy banks with penny collections.

No dollar bills crowding the shoulders of the copper.

No aunt who sends money for every birthday.

The days went by.  I thought he had forgotten 

the poverty and our prayers for the poor.

But he hadn’t.

He came to me with serious brown eyes and said,

“I have lots of money in my fish. 

I want to share my money with the poor children.

I want to get them some shirts and trousers and food and toys.”

I smiled my approval.

The crinkles (he calls them rainbows) showed up by my eyes.

But he is only four. 

He doesn’t know what he is saying, does he?

We let it drop for the moment. Time passes.  Days pass. 

But he doesn’t forget. 

He came back with the same serious eyes and the same idea saying,

“I want to share my money with the poor children.”

I looked at my husband.

It is a look that says I can hardly handle the overwhelming emotions

of a mom whose child is being this compassionate.

No one warned me about these types of feelings when they told me about parenthood.

I watched them empty the fish-shaped bank onto the living room floor.

Father and son, with heads together, counted out piles of pennies.
They laid the bills beside them.

“How much would you like to share with the poor children?” my husband asked him.

Our son looked at the piles.

Six dollars of coins mounded richly in front of him in copper hills.

In his mind it might as well have been millions.

“Hold it!  I have lots of money!”

I offered him a Zip-Lock baggie and he started sharing.

“This is for the poor boy,” he said.

And he scooped pennies into the bag. 

Three generous handfuls.

And then he stopped.

“Is it fine if I keep some for myself?” he asked with hesitation,

almost expecting to be told to return a dry fish to the stand in his room.

“You can keep as much as you want,” we told him, gently.

He nodded, grateful to think he wouldn’t be the poor boy in the end.

To his handfuls of pennies he added three bills. 

He doesn’t know increments. 

He added the largest ones.

The parents looked at each other.  

Our melty-heart puddles showed up in our eyes.

We wouldn't have needed to voice our questions, 
for we were thinking the same things:

“Do we monitor what he gives? 

He doesn’t know what he’s doing.

If he were twelve, he would know that a rumpled 20 is worth more than the crisp 5. 

Then we could let it entirely up to his discretion.”

But he isn’t twelve. 

Twelve is the age he thinks is pure adulthood and to him seems a lifetime away. 

He is only four and generously sharing roughly 
half of his money with poor children. 

Only he's dividing it by the amount of pieces; not by value.

We've never done this thing of being parents to little boys who

 break out their change so they can give it away.

We don’t know the right protocol. 

 Do you let him give blindly without any kind of direction?

We switch a couple of bills around, praying we're doing the right thing.

When he is 12, he can do it again.

He gets a second bag. 

“This is for the mommy and the daddy,” he says.

He dumps in two more generous handfuls of pennies. 

“I’m going to buy food and clothes for the poor people.  Is that kind?”

The warmth of goodwill is flowing through him.

He adds a few more pennies for good measure.

I know.  He’s probably perfectly normal. 

But in this moment, to us,

he’s the most generous, incredible child we have ever known. 

My eyes are wet. 

He clenched his two baggies in his fists.

The deed is done and he is smiling.

We looked at his baggies of coins and smiled with him, 

knowing that we would need to quietly supplement his offering. 

We have a gift card we can use on the portion of the receipt he can’t afford. 

He can hand that to the cashier along with his money 

and never know the difference. 

This gift is his.

I opened a catalog from CAM that has pages full of opportunities for giving. 

I thought he might like to choose how he earmarks the cash, 

but I could have skipped the catalog;

he already knows what he wants.

“A shirt and trousers, and socks and shoes for the boy.  

Won’t he be happy to get that?”

His dreamy smile is cherubic, thinking about a poor boy wearing clothing he 

purchased with his very own money. 

Can this be the same child who this very week asked me

982 questions I couldn’t answer about space shuttles and astronauts?

Then I was afraid I was losing my sanity. 

Now I’m so overcome with love, admiration, gratitude, 

and the “I’m so proud of you” feelings

 that it takes my breath away.

We tucked him in for his nap.  

He was still smiling as he hugged his special blanket.

“Do you think it makes God happy when I share my money?”

“Yes, Sweet Boy.  Very happy.”

I was confident in that.

I knew it was true.  And, if so, it is also true that

God was smiling down on my boy

like he smiles down on his grown-up children when they show compassion.

He takes our puny offerings clutched in sweaty hands and

multiplies them like he did the loaves and fishes, or

like the parents did with pennies in Zip-Locks and a gift card.

We go away smiling, feeling like we did our part in saving the world.

Like three child-sized handfuls of pennies,

our gifts must appear small to him who has it all.

But with his father-like love and approval

which evokes the “I’m proud of you” feelings,

he smiles and says, "Well done, Child" and knows he’ll supplement our gift

until it makes a difference.

We’ll think it is from us until That Day when heaven is reality

and we find we were in partnership

with the Bank of Heaven.

It makes me look at the two baggies 

of pennies on my kitchen counter waiting to be multiplied

and it inspires me to give what I have, both
physical blessings and talent, no matter how small my offering is.

Because being in a partnership with the Bank of Heaven 

is an investment opportunity I don't want to miss out on.

We're into aquatics right now...

If you recall from a previous post, our son loves to pretend he's a deep sea diver.

With that in mind, you can imagine his absolute delight when we were able to see a real, live diver hand-feeding fish and sting-rays at the Baltimore Aquarium.  (Definitely the highlight of the day!!)

So the next few days, he pretended he was a diver almost constantly.  I played into that interest, hid every aquatic related toy we own, and had him go searching.  He swam across the floor with his snorkeling gear and put all the critters he found in his blue mesh bag.  It was grand fun!

He also had so much fun with a little fishing game we made together.  It took about a half an hour to create and provided days of fun.   (I wish all my half-hour time periods produced such good returns!)  Notice his teddy-bear-turned-anchor off to the right.  He flings it out of his wash-basket-boat and into the sea before fishing.   

 To make the game, I printed off these little fish I found here and we (little sister included) colored them together.

To spice things up, I drew a few critters most fishermen would probably not rather catch and added them to the mix.  He loved catching them and hollered "Ew! Look what I caught!!" before flinging it back in the water.  

His fishing rod was a kitchen magnet tied to a ruler with yarn.  Yeah, I know.  Not exactly the most realistic pole I've seen, but he loved it.  

With all the fishing stuff going on, he wanted to make another craft fish like we had made last year. Even though it was a repeat, he had just as much fun with it this time as ever.  

Empty Aisles and Body Crabs

Children simply don't care. They don't care if the person they are talking to is famous or not.  No status impresses them.  I'm sure I can learn a lot from a child.

However, I'd like to think my child can learn a lot from me.  Like discerning what is material for public discussion and what is better when discussed at home.  Take body crabs, for example.

My son isn't always the quietest.  Not at home and, unfortunately, not always in public.  I generally don’t mind his happy holler “I’m a trash man!” when he’s hanging onto the side of the cart in the grocery store.  

But I did cringe when he said in his ‘trash man voice': “Mommy, what are body crabs?”

I have my dad’s sense of humor to thank for that one.  Whenever he has an inexplicable itch on his back, Dad mutters something about his body crabs acting up.  My son picked up on that and apparently the phrase stewed around in the back of his mind for a couple of months until it got the better of him and he just had to ask…in the grocery store. 

I looked around carefully, hoping no one else heard, and tried a brief answer in my softest, whispery voice, “They make you itch.”

Not only was his volume completely unaffected by my whispered answer but he was as curious as ever.  “What did you say?  What are body crabs?”

I cringed the second time, leaned in a bit closer and tried my cathedral hush again.  “They make you itch.”  Then, in a brave attempt of changing the subject, I said briskly, “Okay, Son, are you ready?  Hold on tight.”

He gripped the side of the cart and said, “Oh, they make you itch, Mommy?  Oh.”

Did I imagine things, or did I just get an aisle all to myself?

Okay, so maybe I'm too hard on the little guy.  He's a child, after all. 

Or maybe I'm too hard on him because chances are I do the same thing.  No, I'm too 'up on things' to talk about body crabs in the cereal aisle.  But I'm not too old to hang onto the grown-up side of the cart and say things to an acquaintance that are ill-timed or poorly spoken.   

There is Someone, though, giving me direction in His cathedral whisper if I'll only stop to listen; Someone who can spare me the agony of regrets over my speech...and the chances of an aisle emptying out because of my words.  

Now that I think of it, my son really can learn a few things from me (no more body crab questions, please!), but at the same time, I'm learning an awful lot by being his mom.  

The New Year and the Treadmill Pact

The holidays are officially over.  

The gingerbread house has been demolished, 

the New Year has been rung in,  

and the mailbox could be removed from its post for another year.  

"We didn't plan well," he said on December 31. 

"We should have invited someone over for tonight."

"Right," I responded agreeably.  

"So maybe our first New Year's resolution should be 

to make some really good friends this year

 so next year we have friends to invite."

He laughed.  "Well, how shall we spend our New Year's Eve?"

"On the treadmill?" I suggested.  

And then we both were laughing.    

No, this isn't a New Year's resolution, for the Treadmill Pact was made during the week of Christmas when diets and exercise are necessary but neglected animals.  Both my husband and I have some extra pounds to shed as well as some toning to do, so we spent an hour brainstorming The Treadmill Pact.  We laughingly threatened each other with Windex and squeegees for Christmas and finally sealed the following deal with a handshake.  

Our rules (at least most of them):

• You must be on the treadmill at least three times a week for at least 20 minutes.  If you aren't, you wash three of our dirtiest windows, including the sill space between the window and screen.
• If your opponent not only meets the required minimum for the week but goes up and beyond that, you wash one window unless you match your opponent's treadmill count.
• Maximum of six treadmill experiences per week. (John's idea.  He said he can't afford to have me decide I want the windows washed and spend an entire day on the treadmill which would be impossible for him to repeat since he has to be at the office.)
• Unanimous agreements are the only way to void or change any requirement. (No lame excuses. John already warned me that he can feel malaria in his knee-caps and can't be expected to run like that.  Right.)
• When you reach your goal weight, you still need to treadmill three times per week or you wash three windows.  However, you no longer need to meet your spouse's treadmill counts if they go beyond their call of duty.

The window washing idea, by the way, was the worst punishment either one of us could think of.  Both of us totally hate window washing which means our windows look terrible as I speak.  

"What if six months goes by and no one washes any windows?" John asked theoretically.

Now really, six months with not a single window washed?  I swallowed words of realism and gaily suggested, "In that case, we reward ourselves by hiring someone to wash our windows!"  

Actually, I'm already laughing at the comments my hubby is going to make while hauling a bucket of hot, soapy water towards the windows.  His sense of humor works overtime in moments like those.  

He, of course, keeps making comments about feeling sorry for me having to wash all 19 windows in our house.  He's grinning at me right now and saying, "Hey, can I post pictures of you washing windows on your blog?  I'll say, 'She would be blogging but she's busy right now...'"

Speaking of...

Maybe I should get off of here

and get on the treadmill. 

I only have 4 hours 

until time is up 

and I'll be punished 

with three windows.

This is nothing more

than ruthless.

It's raining in Rome

It was one of "those" days when I was trying to make fun memories with my child but everything was going wrong.  Everything from my youngest waking up too early to my word being contradicted to cookie dough sticking to, well, everything.  This wasn't what I had in mind when I thought of making holiday cookies.

"That doesn't look like a snowman, Mom," my son told me with disappointment dripping from his voice.  He had his hands poking around in the dough and then into the flour and then into his mouth. 

While I was trying to instruct him in the ways of germs and hygiene, my little sound-track kept repeating herself behind me saying, "Mommy, look!"  I stood there with cookie dough gooping up my fingers, the table, and the rolling pin, a snowman leaning precariously on my cookie sheet, my mess widening by the second...and I sighed.  This certainly held the potential of becoming a lasting memory, but not necessarily a positive one.

The good news is that in that critical moment I remembered a phrase offered to us during our parenting classes:  Rome wasn't built in a day.  

We'd like to see our children "get it" immediately.  But usually they won't.  They are children, after all, and it takes time (and consistent parenting) to develop good habits and solid character. 

The phrase was meant to encourage us in our parenting but it went beyond that for me.  It pertained to me directly and to the parent I'd like to become someday.  And it pertained to Fun-Things-Gone-Bad.

Thanks to those well-timed words, I managed to take courage in the middle of my cookie episode. "It is only raining in pre-Rome today," I told myself.  

I imagined the work on Rome being halted during untimely downpours.  The mud, the set-backs, the delays...it wasn't what they had hoped for. But the master planners didn't despair.  They knew the sun would shine again --and Rome eventually became an empire. 

Somewhere in our kitchen the sun must have started to shine because our cookie dough consistency grew workable with more flour and we eventually had trays full of cookies that passed the approval of my junior assistant.  Even the baby grew happy playing by herself.

So the next time I'm losing heart over a child (or a mommy) who isn't "getting it" at the moment or if I'm disappointed over Fun-Things-Going-Bad, I'm going to remind myself that it is only raining. 

After all, Rome wasn't built in a day. 

5 of our Seasonal Traditions

1. Gingerbread House  

Yes, we're amateurs, and no, our house wouldn't win any prizes.  Unless, of course, there are prizes like The Most Fun We Had All Week.

2. Pomander Balls

I may be seriously behind times but I was only introduced to oranges decorated with cloves when last year at my sister-in-law's house.  This year I did my own and had so much fun with them that they became an instant tradition.  According to what I read online, these aromatic balls can be kept from year to year, but considering oranges and cloves are cheap entertainment, I plan to do fresh ones each winter.

3. Cut-out Cookies 

Ok, why can't bread be seasonal?  Bread dough and I get along much more nicely than cut-out cookie dough and I. Which is why I rarely make cut-out cookies and why they turned out like the picture below.  I'll tell you later about cookie dough sticking to rolling pins and other tragic tales in a later post.  But, hey, if you close your eyes when you bite into them (saves yourself the pain of seeing what you are eating) they taste amazing. Plus, my sprinkle-happy four-year-old had a ball decorating them.

4. The Slumber Party

No holiday would ever be complete at our house without our traditional family slumber party in the living room.  The children love it. 

5. Holiday mail  

Okay, so whether this can be filed under the category of "tradition" is debatable, but it certainly is a sign of the season.  We get three-fourths of all personal mail in the month of December. To us it feels like mail by the truckload.  I mean, sometimes we get two whole pieces of mail in one single day.  That is worth celebrating.  

So tell me, what traditions do you have at Christmas time?  

A Gift for the Season

Sometimes gifts are boxes all wrapped up in shiny paper and bejeweled with ribbon.  

But sometimes gifts look different.  Very different.  Sometimes they look like an unidentifiable black spot that grows on your skin.  The finishing touch isn't a pretty ribbon but a concerned mother. 

Right, Brother of Mine? 

The "thing" was noticed a while ago.  But what mother is going to take one look at a tiny but unusual black spot on her strapping six-foot-three son who is swamped in work and convince him in a minute to get it checked out by a doctor?  Not our mama. At least not when we're working with this Brother of Mine.  

So it was forgotten.  At least until Mom saw it a month later.  "This thing is growing, Son.   You really should get it checked out."

"I can't right now." His words were decisive.  He wasn't buying into her concern.  "We are in our busiest season at work and there is no way I'm taking off for this.  You worry too much."

But isn't concern for her child part of a mother's job description?  Especially this mother.  She buried a sister, a best friend, and a father-in-law all to cancer and she wasn't going to let a suspicious looking spot on her son slide by unchecked.

So when it was seen again this past week, she gasped.  It was an audible gasp, but an involuntary one. Catching her breath she said, "Okay! This thing has grown substantially.  Now you have no choice.  You will be going in to the doctor.  I'll even pay for the appointment if that is what it takes, but you need to get this checked out."

No amount of protesting or pinning valid excuses to the moment were going to buy him an escape route this time.  Eventually his moaning and groaning gave way to a reluctant, "Okay, then.  Friday is the only possible day it will work for me this week."

The doctor was no fool.  He had met tall young men before sent to him by a concerned mother and he read the undertones of this visit.  

"Actually, young man," the doctor said, "your mother is right.  This needs to be removed.  However, the spot you came in for doesn't look as dangerous as this one."

His finger traced a neighboring spot.  "This one I'm very concerned about and it needs to come off today."

Mothers are too kind to say "I told you so" but ours would have had full rights.  Yet in the following days, her concern swallowed those rightfully spoken words and exchanged them for prayers.  Family and friends joined in.  

Then came the dreaded phone call.  "The spot removed was cancer and we need to see you in our office tomorrow morning." 

Cancer?  Life and death flashed through his mind.  Her mind.  Surely this wasn't happening.

The appointment turned out to be encouraging.  "It is melanoma in situ, which means it is contained."  The doctor looked at my brother.  "In a year, you would have been in serious trouble."  

But which spot was the cancerous one?  No, it wasn't the black unidentifiable one that Mom had gasped over.  That one was just a decoy God used to get a young man to a doctor.   The cancerous spot was the one the doctor noticed.  

Gifts come in all shapes and sizes.  This time the gift was The Spot that God Grew.  It was all wrapped up in a mother's concern and tied in love's golden thread. 

Merry Christmas, Brother of Mine.  How about a miracle for a present?