Yesterday, I helped make a reader

My daughter had outgrown ALL of her clothes. After round 1 of clothes shopping, we went through her clothes.  The larger items are going to a friend’s child who is a few sizes smaller. The rest I put up on the local free stuff group. 3 moms in my town were interested in the clothes.  There were so many clothes that instead of picking one recipient, I was able to split up the clothes and all 3 got a nice amount of clothing. This is great.

We had also recently gone through some of her books (so that all her books would fit on the bookshelf), but I was lazy and left them in the garage. I decided to toss one in with each box of clothes. I picked titles I thought little girls around the age corresponding to the size might like (hard to get the “just right books” when you don’t know the kid at all).

One lady was interested in the dresses. She got most of the dresses plus a book. Another mom wanted primarily shorts and skirts, so she got the bulk but not all of those plus a book. The mom that seemed to need the clothes the most and said she would take anything, got most of the clothes plus 2 books (I had a hunch people, and I’m a creature of instinct).  I made sure the 3rd box had a couple of dresses and shorts in addition to all the other stuff.

The books the 3rd mom got were both Disney books that my kid hadn’t been fond of. One was about some Disney live-action show that my daughter just wasn’t into. The other was a beautiful, pristine, probably unopened by my child, Princess Jasmine chapter book with some beautiful illustrations. I put them in the box and really hoped that little girl would like that pretty book.

The 3rd mom picked up the box yesterday afternoon and sent me a text last night that said, “Just want to say a HUGE THANK YOU for the clothes and especially the books. My daughter loves them so much. I didn’t know she would enjoy reading . Now I’ll start taking her to the library to check out books to read.”   It made me cry and then run to show the text to my daughter who said, “Mom, we made a reader!” and then happy squealed. 2 books slipped into a box of clothes and a little girl gets to go to the library. Tell me that isn’t magic.