The Penny Present

My children got a package in the mail yesterday from the parents of my childhood best friend.   Jenny, my very first best friend, and I were inseparable for the first years of our lives.   Her family needed to move for work when I was ten, but we remained close, even though we didn’t see each other that often.   Jenny will always have a special place in my heart as there is nothing quite like a first best friend.   But back to the package in the mail…

My mother had told me something was coming for the children, she didn’t know what, but to be sure, any present is an exciting thing to a child.   My children tore open the box (quite literally) and my son immediately found the Lego box, claiming it was for him.   Right there he opened it up and began putting the Spiderman set together he was so happy.    My daughter complained loudly, “where is my present?”

I told her to look further into the box and out she pulled the cutest little panda purse.   She made a happy noise and hugged the purse.   I told her to see if there was anything inside.   While she unzipped the package I found a card in the box and started to read.   About this time I heard a disappointed cry from my daughter because she had found a piece of tissue paper in the panda purse.

I could tell the purse had weight to it so I told her to keep looking.  She reached in and had to tug and pull and eventually got out a ziplock bag crammed full of pennies.    I had been reading the card and told her Joan and John knew how much she loved to throw pennies in the fountains in Detroit and they wanted to send her some pennies for her next trip.

You would have thought the bag was made of gold.   She hugged the bag, squeezed the bag and did this little gleeful happy dance that I wasn’t fast enough to get recorded because my phone was in the next room.   Suffice it to say, she was thrilled with the pennies.

A little while later I found my daughter and two of her friends with the largest tupperware container we had, brimming with water.   The three-year-old was trying to carry it without dropping it to, well, I don’t know where, because I stopped them.   When I asked what they were doing they told me they were making a wishing well for the pennies.  

“Oh”, I said.   “What a great idea.  Why don’t you take it onto the deck?”   They did and they managed to put every single penny into that “wishing well”.   I don’t know what they wished for, but with that number of pennies, some of their wishes are bound to come true.

My daughter is looking forward to taking her panda purse and her cache of pennies to Detroit when she goes back in November.   What a fun and unexpected present in the mail from parents of my best friend from childhood.   Thank you, Joan and John.

The Big Boy Update:  My son and daughter went to a tie dye event at school today.  My daughter got some of the dyes on her, but my son did a much more thorough job of coloring himself.   We decided to wait until the bath tonight to see what color the water will turn when they get in.   My son wanted to know if he could put his crocs in as well, because they had ink on them too, he told me.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter not only enjoyed throwing the pennies into the container (wishing well), she liked cleaning them too.   She helped dry them by spreading them out and patting them with a cloth.   They’re now back in her panda purse, awaiting the fountains in Detroit—or the next time she needs to do some wishing here at the house.