charity

Saturday night Elliot, Ada and I went out to Souplantation for dinner. Ada was in a particularly good mood and was quite the little chatterbox. As we were wrapping things up Ada made it clear that she did not want to leave just yet, she was more in the mood to sit around and enjoy the ambiance a little bit. So we started a little conversation about how I was her Mommy and that my name was also Katie so that made me her Katie Mommy or Mommy Katie, and since Elliot was her Daddy and his name is Elliot he is her Daddy Elliot (he only gets it one direction). Then all of a sudden out of the blue Ada asked if some boys and girls do not have a Mommy and a Daddy (no idea where this came from). So we started explaining different reasons why yes, some boys and girls do not have a Mommy or a Daddy. This was a probably the most adult conversation we have had with Ada to date and I was not sure if Ada was getting it 100%. I shouldn't have doubted a thing.

Fast forward to later in the evening when we dug in to tackle what we thought was going to be a difficult task - getting Ada to filter through all of her stuffed animals to pick which ones she wanted to keep and which ones she wanted to donate to Goodwill. As we started in on this task we saw an opportunity to connect to our previous conversation and told Ada that she was going to go through her animals and pick out the few she wanted to keep and the rest were going to go to the boys and girls who weren't as lucky as her, you know the ones that don't have a Mommy AND a Daddy. We bent the truth a little bit but I was trying to put it into a context she would understand. After I explained that this didn't mean she had to give up purple Dora or Dumbo or Elmo she was Ok.

I put this heavy activity in Elliot's hands and went off to clean up the kitchen. After noticing that there was no screaming or whining coming from Ada's room I decided to pop my head in to see if the carnage had begun or if Elliot was chickening out, and to my surprise, Ada was busily putting almost ALL of her stuffed animals into the donate bag! Including ELMO! She did have a pile of animals and toys she was keeping, but she really took the charity idea to heart and was even more brutal (and swift) than Elliot and I would have been.

After it was all was said and done Ada filled up three bags of stuffed animals and toys, and one bag about half full of clothes (mostly pants - Ada hates pants). When we went to drop off the bags on Sunday we told Ada what we were doing and she didn't care, in her mind those toys were already gone and she was happy to help out boys and girls who didn't have both parents.

Ada is almost three and up until recently I didn't think this birthday meant anything more than the fact that another year had passed. But as it approaches, I am beginning to think that I will always look back on three as the age when Ada really started forming the basis for who she will become as teenager and adult. If this weekend is any indication we will all be fortunate to be part of her life.

I promise to remember this when she comes home with an unexplained piercing, strange boyfriend, or 20 minutes past curfew. I promise.