Oh Laura and Mary Ingalls with their shining eyes

Well...  we arrived at the water park in the afternoon on Tuesday and the after playing on the slides and in the wave pool until 7:00 (the kids' usual bedtime) we headed back to the room for dinner.  I made pizza and listened to Coen on the phone with his grandpa, so proud that we were about to eat dinner right at BEDTIME!  Well, of course the next day there were a lot of easy tears and quick frustration and by the afternoon, when Coen was upset about not getting to have yet another frosted cookie, I pulled he and Lucy aside, sat them down in the hotel lobby's suggested "family photo spot" in front of a couple of brass gorillas and we had ourselves a little chat.

Coen and I have been reading Little House on the prairie and it struck me, as we read, that every time Mary and Laura Ingalls get a Christmas present, they are SO appreciative.  And what is in their stockings? A piece of candy and a pair of mittens...that's it.  So I asked Coen, why do you think they are so happy about just getting those things?
And he said "Because they don't have very much, and so getting anything makes them happy."
Brilliant.
So I said "Yes, and you and Lucy have SO much. You have so many toys and you get so many great things. And you get to go to the Kalahari every year! Some kids never get to go.  And I get frustrated when you get upset when you can't have ANOTHER cookie instead of being happy that you even got a cookie. Or when you get upset because the sucker I gave you was so small instead of being happy that you GOT a sucker at all!"
I went on with my pep talk and I really think he understood.  Lucy on the other hand interrupted me to point at a giant wooden alligator, yelling "What's THAT?!"  But at any rate, I got a lot of 'thank-you's' out of both kids for the duration of our time there.  We'll see how long it sticks.  But in this economic climate and our personal economic climate..I want my kids to know that what they have is a lot and what they are is incredibly lucky.

On a side note, on the way home we were talking about why Coen had woken his sister up in the morning so early.  His response, with wild hand gestures: "Well, she was just laying there sleeping, but her face looked like it WANTED to be woken up!"

Yep.