It is hardest of course, for Chet, who is over stimulated by the flashing lights, the music, the crowds, essentially ALL of Yuletide. Lissa is kind of up there too in the easily stimulated arena, but Rob and KC are thankfully not. Todays shopping trip focussed on birthday and Yule gifts for Fiona, Christmas gifts for K from the older boys, gifts for the "Shoebox Project" at church and the supplies KC needed for a gift he wanted to make for K for Yule. I like to take it in small chunks when I do this holiday thing, don't I? LOL
We tackled Fiona's gifts first and found pretty sweaters, a fancy hoodie with faux fur around the hood, a sparkly scarf and some cute jewelry. Those were all fine, but KC was determined to get her a locket because he felt she should have a picture of us from one of our visits that she could always wear close to her heart. The only locket we could find that fit his vision (it HAD to be heart shaped and it HAD to be silver) was more than I would ever normally have a sibling spend. But the sincerity of his desire to do this and the maturity of seeing what she would need outweighed the fact that his piggy bank sure did not have this much cash in it. He can pay me in chores and I know he will. We got the locket and now we have to figure out how to shrink one of our pictures down and print it for inside of it.
We did K next and that went pretty easily. Oh and I also was (you can laugh here) helping Chet buy his gift for me. Chet and K have been oil and water these days and with his aforementioned over-stim situation, it seemed better for me to do this. He doesn't stress me out the way he does K. I set some guidelines by showing him 3 things I liked and then told him to make his decision from those things and pay for it while I was elsewhere so that I would not know his final decision. My goal in this was to try and make sure I did not get another 3X hoodie since I am a size 5! LOL I asked Rob to circle back and check on things when I was not in the aisle and he did and reported that all went well.
Once we got back together it was time to buy gifts for an 8 to 12 year old boy who is in a shelter in Maine. Rob spent Columbus Day weekend there with our church youth group and bonded with an 8 year old boy there. In Rob's mind, we were buying for that particular boy. I have not a clue that he will actually receive our specific box, but didn't honestly feel that I needed to burst that bubble for Rob. I think he thinks a lot about that boy and that he weighs on his heart a bit. If it helps Rob to believe he gets this box, so be it. And who knows, maybe he will. We all picked out things for the box. It is fun to see how much we can fit in a shoebox. We fit, craft scissors, glue sticks, glitter sticks, crayons, markers, 2 pair of gloves, a card game of pictionary, a game called Toss Up, Silly Putty, clay, a Transformer, and an action figure. I figured out last year that you fit the most things by taking everything out of its cardboard and shrink wrap and packing in that way. I loved watching the kids all take part in deciding what to get and knowing that someone will have a brighter Christmas because of what we did.
From there we went to get printer ink because we need to take the kids holiday picture so I can mail out my cards. I tried to take their picture when we got home and either I was VERY jittery after taking them all shopping or the anti wiggle feature got turned off by a gremlin again. (I suspect the latter as the kids all use the camera as well.) I could have screamed as it was a cute shot, but it is way too unfocussed.
Then we went to the craft store and I scored a couple of craft kits for Fiona and KC got the suppies to make his gift for K. He literally has drawn out diagrams of what he wants to make for people and he sat down and did hers the minute we got home. The kid amazes me.
Actually, they all amaze me. They give freely of their hearts and their talents and that is all any mom could ask for.
No comments:
Post a Comment