Tootsie Roll

This morning as I was putting my lunch together in my little Igloo portable cooler, Evie hopped up on her tip-toes a couple times to see inside. Then she ran around to the other side of the counter and said, "I'll give you a treat for your lunch!" She grabbed her bag of candy from the parade the night before and picked out a little Tootsie Roll for me and dropped it into the cooler (I'm eating it now), and I thanked her and gave her a big hug. It was the perfect treat.

Evie has an inherent generosity and love bigger than anyone I know. She loves sugar -- I often have to make her stop eating large amounts of whatever sweet thing she has (she inherited my sweet-tooth, which I got from my dad) -- but she willingly shared her candy with me, no prompting at all.

Mirjam has told me that when she plays with our friend's autistic daughters, sometimes she'll get pinched, bitten, pushed, squeezed, or have her hair pulled, but her response is not crying or fear. She grimaces and laughs as best she can while telling the other girl, "That's enough" in a very kind, motherly way.

(William, too, is very generous with the other kids. It's uncanny how well they all play together.)

It's incredible to me how loving and generous Evie is. It is truly a gift to have such an enormous heart like that. And she is truly a gift to me and our family.