keep the change

Note: There is an edit/addition at the end of this post.

J and M were sitting on our bed reading last night while I was otherwise occupied with laundry and other exciting Friday night activities. When I came back in the room, I noticed they were perusing TIME magazine.

J said she's really taken with a picture in here - she can't stop looking at it. When I asked M what picture she liked she flipped to an advertisement for children with cleft palates. She held it up and pointed to one boy in particular (Ahem, a lovely young man from Africa, no less) and said, look mommee, look. mouthowwie. So I said, yes baby, these babies have owwies (I have no idea how to spell that so forgive me) and they need a doctor, but they have no money.

And then, I swear to freaking god, my child said my piggy bank mommee.

J and I looked at each other, mentally telepathing something between holy shit, really? and overwhelming joy. (Months ago we started the piggybank deal, giving her spare change sometimes and letting her put it inside, talking about how that was her money and she could save it for when she wanted something special.)

So I said, do you want to give this boy your money so he can see a doctor? Yesmommee.

We went to her room and took her piggy bank off the shelf and I said, M, if we open this and take out all the money, that means it will be empty and we'll have to start savihg all over again. Are you sure?

Yesmommee.

So we sat on the floor and opened her bank and she shook all the coins out. I went and got a plastic bag and she carefully put all the coins inside and then took the bag and sat it on the boy's face and handed me the magazine. I asked her again if she was sure, and she said yes.

So we took her money and put it away and simultaneously went online and made a donation. A donation that was made rather reservedly, because they did have a full page ad in TIME. But they do claim that all donations go 100% to programming and not to advertising or overheard, so I'll roll with it because my kid asked me to.

After we were done we put the empty piggybank back on the shelf and we hugged and kissed her and talked about how absolutely wonderful her idea was.

I have no idea what all of that meant in a two year old's head, but damn if it didn't feel like we're heading in the right direction.

Edited to note: One of the things about this that was particularly curious to me was that she conceptualized money. When we started her piggy bank, I thought it was cute, a place for spare change, etc, but I didn't realize that she equated it as money as I see it. And then she equated that money as a means to help. For a 2.4 year old to make that connection, it rather astounded me (and no, this isn't a rant about my kid being smart), it's more speaking to what BubandPie said in the comments, about how much they probably really do know and understand and it comes down to how we allow them to express it. Just my post post .02.