With Halloween safely behind us it crossed my mind this morning that I had better figure out how to ration the candy. We didn't collect all that much, but Nolan was determined to open and sample every piece in his bag. So I began with the rule that there would be "no candy until 10am". Sounds reasonable right? Well, we were out of the house at 10 so enforcing the rule took minimal effort. The question then was when the candy consumption could begin. So I quickly thought of the hard and fast rule of "no candy until after (fill-in-the-blank)" which at the time was lunch. After lunch we proceeded to our house where the sight of the candy bags nearly insighted a riot. Kevin had been wanting to try the "gummy bones" he was interested in and Nolan was still interested in sampling everything. And then a feeling of generosity swept over my children.

"Mom, can I go down to the lobby and share my candy?" Kevin asked.

With a feeling of dread that nap time would be ruined I reasoned with myself that generosity and kindness far outweighed the need for naps. So down we went, to share the candy, a kind of reverse trick or treating. And as always Nolan was four steps behind us, bound to do whatever his brother was doing, blissfully naive to the fact that soon his stash would not be sample-able. We gave out three or four pieces of candy and Kevin asked who else he could share with and the field trip began. Student after student smiled and said thank you to a small piece of candy handed to them by sticky hands and a big grin. "Hala-allawee," Nolan would say occasionally. Kevin would just stand in front of them, say, "...stop!", hand them candy and then go about his business.

Then we got home. Whew!... no need for rationing or rules for the candy... and the best part is that it was their choice. They wanted to give it away... right? Yay for kindness! Yay for generosity! Yay for sharing! Yay for no more candy in the house! And then, the question...

"Mom, when can I get more candy?"

"Next year at Halloween."

"Next year?" And then I felt it... you know what I'm talking about... that calm before the storm... that realization that made the lump in the throat... and the tears...

All of a sudden the happiness of sharing and generosity was clouded by the sadness of the empty bags.

All in all it turned out okay. Kevin understands that what he did was a good thing though he is still not happy about his candy being all gone. Nolan doesn't really know what's going on yet, he was still working on a sucker when we got home that he nursed along while he was giving all of his candy away. And I'm writing this down now so that when they are older we can look back on this event and reinforce the goodness of sharing.

Scenes from the next episode: The effects of a sugar crash...