Mama bear is proud

I'll warn you right now, this is going to be a "my little girl is such a great kid" kind of post. :-)

We just finished Operation Christmas Child at church. As a family, we've done OCC (you know, those shoeboxes filled with goodies) for a number of years. In Novembers past, I've gathered the kids around my computer and showed them the videos that can be seen on the Samaritans Purse website. We would head over to Zellers and the dollar store to fill up shoeboxes with all manner of exciting things (exciting, because we knew they would be going to some little one who likely owned nothing like any of our bounty). I was always really pleased with the effect on my kids and felt it was building a great sense of compassion and sacrifice in them. It's hard for 2 and 3 year olds to pick things out of a store and not get to keep them!

Well, last year and this, mom and I brought OCC to the MountainKids. I won't get into how it went here and now, but instead I wanted to tell you about something Honour did.

2 or 3 weekends ago, we were over at my parents house on a Sunday afternoon, a common ritual. Sometime in the afternoon, Honour started talking about a ballet show she wanted to put on for all of us. This is also a common ritual in our family, although she'd never done it at my moms, in front of all the family.
So she schemed and planned all afternoon and once in a while I heard rumblings that she was going to be asking us all to pay to see the show. I didn't give this alot of attention--I'm usually trying to catch up on MountainKids planning on Sunday afternoons.

Sure enough, after supper she finagled the menfolk to move the furniture in the living room aside and tada! Her dance floor was ready. As everyone came in and found a place to sit, she tripped about the room, flashing her pearlies and holding out her hand for "donations". She asked for a minimum of a dime. Of course everyone dug deep and acquiesced.

And then, as I tootled some made-up tune (at her request), she waltzed about the room and performed, to the best of her memory, some of what she learned at a 10 week ballet class over a year ago. She was, of course, adorable.

After a grand total of 4 minutes, the show was done and we all clapped enthusiastically. When she had me help her count her proceeds, I was surprised that she had raised nearly 2$.

It was then that she told me that "Now she had enough to buy something for the kids who only get one egg for breakfast!". I was SO touched and pleased at this. I had been a little concerned at her "hornswaggling" this money off my parents and siblings, but to hear what her little heart had been intending....it just made my heart melt.

You might be wondering what in the world the one egg for breakfast thing is....

A couple months ago, I read this blog about a remarkable young woman who is making a difference in the world in a way most of us only dream of. You can read about her here.

One story she tells is about how she provides breakfast for about 200 needy kids in Uganda--a hard boiled egg. Now, truthfully, she might give them more than just one egg, but one day when I was trying to help my daughters understand how wasteful it was not to finish the food on their plate, I told them about Katie, and these children she provides for. I told them that these poor kids only got 1 egg for breakfast and that was a word picture that really stuck in their heads.

Honour had decided that these kids who only get one egg for breakfast were one and the same as those we were packing shoeboxes for. And who knows, they just might be.

So a few days after the ballet for charity show, I took her and Verity over to the dollar store and she picked out 2 items to go in her OCC box.

I won't pretend she was still single-mindedly committed to buying this stuff for her box...I had to keep her on track a couple times. But in the end, the items were bought, and she was ready to pack them in the shoebox and see them go off to a child who would appreciate them--in the end---more than she.

One of those...maybe-we-are-doing-a-half-decent-parenting-job-after-all moments....