Shopping with My Kids

The older children get really excited about a shopping trip with Mom to pick out presents with their siblings. I really enjoy watching them plan and choose and this year I cherished their individuality and my time with them.

Weeks ahead of time, Aliza starts thinking of ideas for every person she wants to buy a gift for. (She is the only one that includes all of her grandparents.) Once the idea process has started it is all she wants to talk about. Every moment that she has me alone she goes over all her people and her ideas--over and over. As we are driving to the store Aliza is still gathering ideas and stressing over the few that she can't figure out. I lead through the store. Aliza doesn't stop talking. Any gift idea that I point out or suggest is rejected because then the gift would be from me not her. We didn't walk around the store too many time before she was successful. Aliza is super excited to GIVE her gifts. I was a grinch, though, because I wouldn't wrap with her as soon as we got home!

Anna was next. Anna was excited to go SHOPPING. She walked into the store and held the door open for a lady who was coming out. We picked a small cart and Anna insisted on pushing the cart. She decided to put her coat on the lower part of the cart and presents in the top part. Anna pushed that cart up and down the aisles like she was way older than 6 years old. Anna had a special outing at open gym earlier in the day that I hadn't heard about yet so I asked her questions. She gladly answered my questions, but didn't talk constantly. Anna picked out her gifts easily. It took her a bit to find just the right thing for Aliza but when she did she was thrilled. Anna carried her bags of gifts and skipped back to the car singing "I've got the peace that passes understanding down in my heart..."

When Josiah and I are in the car alone I let him sit up front with me--because he will talk to me. I've noticed that while I'm chatting with Josiah he asks lots of "how" questions. How do you pay for a house? How does this or that work. Often I don't have good answers! And between the questions he fills me in on how his games work and how people can write scripts for games and how he would like to write a game. Shopping with Josiah is pretty straight forward. He picked out his gifts easily and wanted to look at the boy toys a little extra. The girls kind of dominate any time that we walk the toy aisles--which is rare! Josiah will ask me what I think about a gift. Once a gift is in the cart he is satisfied--no second guessing!

All of their gifts are wrapped and in hiding places. I don't trust Isaiah to keep gifts wrapped under the tree so we will just wait a couple more years for that.