Here's My Sweet Ellers and her cherished Bunny before school this morning...
I received an email a bit ago from my best friend Allyson who is currently with her husband and 6 children in Thailand. On what seemed like almost a whim, they bought 8 airline tickets to Thailand and took their kids to help in orphanages over there. You can read about their decision, HERE. They are an amazing family. They are currently still there and I have been showing my girls pictures of their day to day trips to the orphanages. Elle was looking at the photos and she said, "mama, I could maybe mail them a shirt of mine that I don't wear anymore." I told her that was a great idea and that we could talk about it in the morning. About a half an hour later I heard crying coming from her bedroom. I walked into her dark room and asked her what was wrong. Elle sat up in her bed and at this point she was bawling. I still had no idea what the problem was. She then buried her head down into her chest held her bunny up in the air towards me and said, "mama, please take bunny. send him to the kids in the orphanage." To know Elle is to know that this little bunny is HER BUNNY. She has slept with him every night since she was a baby. If we are on vacation, Bunny comes with us. Sometimes in the middle of the night she will come in my room and tell me she can't find her Bunny. I'll go into her room and usually he has just fallen between her bed and the wall. The point here is that this little Bunny is the most priceless possession she has. I tried to give her bunny back to her in between her sobs and she just kept saying, "please mama, just mail him. it's ok. they need him more." At this point I was crying with her. In the dark of her room she had realized that offering a t-shirt she didn't wear anymore was not enough. She wanted to offer up the one thing most precious to her for those little kids in Thailand. I thought it wasn't possible to love her anymore, but sitting on the bed with her last night my heart melted. I have emailed my friend Ally and she said that if we look at the pictures, Elle can choose which little girl she wants to send her bunny to and Ally will make sure to get her name and address. So we're going to do it. Bunny is heading to Thailand. I took these pictures of her this morning so we could add a picture of her with the bunny in our package. I know those little kids need a lot more than one stuffed bunny so we've also decided to sell cookies door to door in our neighborhood to make some extra money to send with our Bunny as well. I think more than anything this will be something my Elle will remember forever and I hope will be a way for her and all of us to do a little more for others.
