Ten elementary school age children of mine just burst through the back door, high and wired from the amount of sugar they consumed at their Valentine’s Day Parties, plus the massive amount of chocolates, suckers and other assorted candies they also drug home.

Kids from a deprived background, you’d think they’d bicker over every morsel, yet I’ve seen a totally different spectacle surprisingly happening here within my family each time.

They share.

They remember their years of lack; they seem to want to ensure that the younger kids especially never go through that. Even the Children’s Church Director has remarked that the presenting of birthday candy, for any one of my kid’s birthdays, needs to occur after the service, as she’s observed each child carefully doling it out, part and parcel, evenly amongst the other children in our family, squirreling some away to give to the older children later. Same with stickers from the doctor’s office, treasures from yard sales, and even coveted birthday gifts.

My 12 year old waited, begged, and pleaded for a Mountain Smith purse for her birthday this year, I finally gave in, and she was ecstatic, yet within two days, she’d allowed another sister to carry it to school.

On birthdays, my children usually get new clothes and I’ve always seen them allow others to wear the clothes first.

This is not to say that we live a strife-free life. I’ve seen fist fights nearly erupt over a smelly sock with holes in it, screaming fits over a bar of soap, or who used up all the hot water.

But on Valentines Day, every year that they’ve lived with me, at Halloween, and other candy-oriented holidays, this concerned sharing appears to be a by-product of sibling adoption, common to every group of siblings I’ve ever adopted.

My siblings and I weren’t like that. My brother would point to an imaginary spider on the wall, just to get a sucker like me to turn around so he could swipe my last bite of cake. Nor did I willingly share clothes with my sister.

Christmas is stressful, too many sad and bad holiday memories from their lives before adoption; fears arise, wavering uncertainties appear, and so much acting-out behaviors erupt that we now call it Holiday Hell Mode.

Today, it’s a peaceful afternoon, with candy swapping and sharing going on all around me. I’m usually against refined sugar so this is indeed a big treat for them all, and they’re having a blast, no adoption issues exploding, just positive brother-sister getting along time.