Christmas Toothbrush Story

Like all mom's I try to teach my kids to share and be generous, especially with their siblings.  However, sometimes younger siblings can really damage their older brothers' and sisters' stuff so a balanced approach of teaching the kids what to share and then with whom can become a complex web of rules and developmental considerations...yet at other times, it seems like the rules are pretty obvious.





On Christmas Sunday morning, I had Christmas stockings full of fruit, candy and a couple special treats like friction cars for the toddlers and earbuds for the tweens and teens.  However, I had David at age 8, and he is right between friction cars and ear buds.  He loves electronic games, but that was outside of the budget so I had struggled to figure out what he would consider a fun treat/toy.  After a lot of consideration, he said something to help me out.  He mentioned that he had seen a picture of me getting an electric Bugs Bunny toothbrush for Christmas as a child, and he wanted to know if I still had it because it was "awesome".  So I started looking at Wal-Mart, Target, Walgreens, etc and finally found a SpiderMan electric toothbrush that I was sure David would love!

On Christmas morning, I was disappointed to see that David had gotten up before me, opened his stocking gifts and was already settled into watching a video that he had gotten from grandma the night before.  I had hoped to see him open his stocking, and I wanted to know what he thought of his toothbrush, which I KNEW he would love!  So you can imagine my horror when 4 year old Matt met me outside the bathroom with toothpaste suds everywhere and letting me know he LOVED the Spiderman toothbrush.  I started explaining to Matt that you cannot take things out of someone else's stocking.  He said, "I know.  David said I could."  Well, as you can imagine, I was crushed that David had given away a gift that I was sure he would REALLY love. 

So later when David had finished his movie, I asked him about the toothbrush...was it too noisy? Did it scare him? Was it too much vibration?  No, no, no, he assured me that it got his teeth really clean as he pointed to his teeth and showed me his big smile.  My heart sank.  I knew I had to tell him what Matt did.  I called Matt to the kitchen with David and I, then I started to explain that I was so sorry that Matt had taken his toothbrush.  David glared at Matt and yelled, "You broke it! I told you to be careful when you tried it!"  I felt a little gag in my throat as I got the boys to clarify that they had both used the toothbrush.  Matt was especially proud as he declared, "David shared it with me."

So we had a talk about things that you share and things that you don't share.  Then I spent about an hour boiling and replacing EVERYONES' toothbrushes, especially as I thought about all those times my own toothbrush was unexpectedly damp...and as I realized that David had wanted my old Bugs Bunny electric toothbrush to USE again.  Icky!

BTW-Neither Matt or David could remember if they had ever tried my toothbrush!  I'm laughing now or I would still be gagging!

And this commandment have we from him,

That he who loveth God love his brother also. ~~I John 4:21