Sometimes I worry about what my girls have. And I mean what they have, not what they don't have. Even with a single, mostly-unemployed Mom, scraping by on child support and little else, they have an excess. Between their respective Grandparents, aunts, uncles, and even me, they are spoiled.

I recently went through the toys in their room. Toys they don't even see because there are too many. And we will be making a trip soon to donate some to charity, just so they can glimpse what it's like for kids who are less fortunate. But then I realized that underneath their little consumer exteriors, always want want wanting, are these sweet, generous little spirits...in spite of me and their excessive surroundings.

The other day we were at one of our favorite hang out spots downtown and one of our homeless friends walked by and said hello. We chatted for a couple minutes but as he was walking off, my eldest ran to catch him and handed him a dollar. Her dollar. Without any prompting from anyone. She gets it, I thought. Her heart of gold gleaming in my mind's eye. Despite all my lecturing, that seems to go in one ear and out the other, she understands what it means to have and have not. She knows, as if innately, how to be generous. Or somewhere along the way she learned it. And I won't be so presumptuous as to say it was from me. Although I hope I am generous too, it was yet another moment of learning from my children. And remembering that perhaps the most important lesson is to remain teachable.