So I don't know if any of you remember last year when we started the tradition of letting each Boy carefully select a gift for his brother in order to instill in the kids the blessing of giving. It was beautiful. Truly a Hallmark moment, from the gift selection to the gift exchange. This year, unfortunately, held some character building lessons for all of us.
The entire fam headed to Toys-R-Us together one afternoon in December.
Mistake #1: Way too close to nap time.
Mistake #2: I was armed with specific coupons and a gift card that expired in a few days. Way too much pressure.
Mistake #3 was not our fault: Way too crowded! We could hardly even worm our way to the shelves to view the toys!
Mistake #4: Noah was still having quite a bit of tummy trouble from antibiotics, meaning several messy diaper changes in the car during our visit. Way too much time spent elbow deep in poo.
All this bad news added up to a very stressful shopping time. Nosy was fretful and wanted DOWN the entire time. O wanted to experiment with every toy in sight, which is the least productive way to accomplish a quick shopping trip. So while attempting to enforce the wonderfulness of giving to others and thinking of what would delight the other person, we were shouting over hundreds of other store patrons, wrestling a toddler, reining in a preschooler and attempting to spend our free money on super expensive toys. What a disaster!
Whew!
Thank goodness all was forgotten by Christmas morning! O picked out a couple of great Hot Wheels cars for Nosy, which he was thrilled with, and a toy camera so he could snap pictures with O and me. No-nos gave O a darling stuffed monkey that O absolutely adores. Both kids were very grateful and the hugs that ensued were heart-melting.
In the end, I hope they are learning about the blessedness of giving. In a year or two, we will "help" the giving be a little more sacrificial, more of an out-pouring of love than just spending Mommy and Daddy's money. But for now, I pray they are each learning the lesson at their own level. And we learned quite a few things to do differently next year!
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