Monday, February 1, 2010

The art of gifting

Saturday was my birthday. Yes, I've mentioned this several times already, but there is a point to bringing it up again. My fantastic parents drove up from Portland so Mr. Dog and I could go out to dinner, and enjoy more than a few alcoholic beverages with friends while they watched the boys. That was great. Auntie Chihuahua and Thomas joined us for dinner and drinks. Lots of drinks. And since this is a family oriented blog, I won't go into too much detail here, but I will never be able to look at gnomes or tiny combs again without thinking about Thomas. Seriously. I'm scarred. But it was great, really great. And it wasn't even the best part of my birthday!
Earlier in the day, Mr. Dog took the boys out to pick out cards and get presents for mama. While he was getting them dressed, Mr. Dog told them, "Think about what you might want to get mama for her birthday." Big Dog paused, thought about it then announced, "I know what I want to get her," with absolute certainty.
While they shopped, I also shopped. I hit a few stores to get a new outfit for going out to dinner. When I returned home Big Dog nearly attacked me at the door. "Mama, your presents are upstairs. There are more than one, but they're all wrapped together. I knew just what to get you. Come open them!" So I did. And as I tried to think what he might have wanted to get me, I had flashbacks to previous ShamWow discussions and tried not to cringe.
I was happily surprised to find it was not a ShamWow. No, his perfect gift turned out to be a hairbrush. Just like one I have. He was elated. I enthusiastically received the gift and then opened the other pieces of the package. Mr. Dog had included a magazine focused on designing furniture. Little Dog had decided to get me the Sponge Bob Squarepants version of Memory. And together they added a new copy of the original Where the Wild Things Are, since my copy which I owned long before I had children has been trashed by my hard reading boys.
It was kind of an odd assortment, but their excitement about their gifts was overwhelming. Big Dog was especially proud of his hairbrush gift. And it sounds strange, but I understand his excitement. In his mind it was the perfect present. I'd had that same hairbrush. It was the brush we used to comb the boys' hair before school every morning. Recently it has gone missing. His though going into picking a present I would like and use is adorable. Even more adorable was his giddy joy in telling everyone how much I loved the brush. When I went downstairs to get dressed for dinner, Big Dog told grandma, "Mom was so happy! She really liked it! Mama said she loved her new brush! It wasn't about the wrapper, it's all about the present." And later he told Mr. Dog how happy he was that I thought it was the perfect present. In fact, as I'm writing this he's in the guest room telling Mr. Dog how much I liked the presents and how right he was in picking out a hairbrush and that I do indeed love Where the Wild Things Are.
And yes, it probably is the best brush I have ever been given as a gift. Mr. Dog says I might need to tone down my enthusiasm for this kind of thing or I may end up getting a brush every year for my birthday. I'd be ok with that. As for Little Dog's gift, well we've played a great deal of Memory today and I imagine we'll be playing a lot more in the future. So maybe these boys were onto something. These gifts kind of rock.

3 comments:

Christie said...

Kids and husbands give THE BEST gifts.

chihuahua5 said...

i wanna see the hairbrush and play the memory game on wednesday!!!

geekymummy said...

I'm guessing memory is a game? At first I thought he gave you a recording of spongebob singing "Memory" from cats. Which would be very weird.

I tagged you again, one day you'll do it! My british mummy blog friends are very meme-ey these days.
http://geekymummy.blogspot.com/2010/02/stories-and-songs-meme.html

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