Wednesday, December 31, 2008

A Massive Mommy Confession

Some might think I am a terrible mom. I think I am a smart mom. Ever since I became pregnant with The Prairie Kid I knew that I would be off the hook for a long, long time on buying him presents. I remember receiving baby gifts from over 100 people when he was born. We were well supplied and I did not need to buy barely a thing for our little man. And as our first Christmas and birthday came around I realized, "He doesn't know who he gets this stuff from! It won't matter that Mom and Dad didn't give him anything." And as his second Christmas and birthday, and then his third Christmas, came and went I continued to let everyone else buy him things.


Now for his third birthday I did find a steal on something that I thought he would love. I went ahead and put up a whole 20 bucks for the guitar that we got him. But as we approached Christmas I wasn't planning on buying him anything.


While with Abuelita in Denver The Prairie Kid visited Santa at the mall. He reported to his grandma, who then reported to me, that he was getting a dinosaur for Christmas. "What?" I thought, "but he has a whole BOX of them at home that he doesn't play with!"


And this is where the controversial "terrible" vs. "smart" mom debate really gets heated.


I took all of the dinosaurs of The Prairie Kid's, wrapped them up and put them under the tree for Christmas. You want a dinosaur for Christmas? You're getting dinosaurs for Christmas!


Now this was a huge risk because The Prairie Kid is 3 now. And smart. Smarter than every one's own good some days. How would he react? Would he know that they were the ones he already has? Would he try to go find the ones "like mine, Mom!" and find out that they were no longer in their proper place...the box?


I am a risk taker.

The Prairie Kid opened up the first dinosaur. He was partially excited, "A dinosaur!" And then he turned around and put it right in the box that I had gotten it out of. Funny, he put all of his new presents in a very particular pile...not this one. Then he moved on to the next dinosaur. Same thing. And so on.

My mom did get him a brand new soft dinosaur that he can sleep with "like Caillou!" Thank you, Mom, and all of you other awesome people who buy my child real presents so that I don't have to (yet).

By the way, he hasn't touched the "new" box of dinosaurs...just like he hadn't touched them before. He is playing with the one my mom got him.

3 comments:

wyofaith said...

Oh I'm laughing so hard at this one. People have asked "What's Santa bringing Caleb?" and while I have no beef against Santa at all, I do feel like the biggest Scrooge in the world when I say "nothing."

"Nothing??????"
Yep, nothing.
It just seems so pointless. All he really wants is my time anyways!

Amanda said...

I totally agree with you girls. I don't think there is anything wrong with regifting some of their toys, because they won't really remember all of their toys. Society says that we need to give our kids a truckload of gifts for Christmas and if we don't, we're terrible parents. I say, "Get a Life!"

Unknown said...

I think that's great! I can count on one hand the number of actual presents I've gotten Max in five years. I think I've only gotten him two Christmas gifts ever and I certainly didn't buy Maggie a thing this year. She didn't know the difference and seemed truly pleased with all the bows off of their gifts from Grandma! I don't think I've ever re-gifted from Max's own toys, though I've given him hand-me-down toys from a friend.