When my boys were little, it was easy to buy Christmas and birthdays for them because they had limited interests: For my oldest, it was baseball cards, Nintendo games, clothes (he always needed new clothes), and science fiction and vampire books. For my youngest, it was Lego blocks, Tonka Toys, matchbox cars, Nintendo games and clothes (he always needed new clothes, too).
Every Christmas and every birthday, my youngest son, Justin, got a new set of Lego blocks. We bought him a plastic tub to store them all in. He had quite a collection.
One day, when we lived in an apartment in Houston, Texas, I went to work. It was a long day. I worked about 12 hours that day. When I came home, I opened the living room door to an immaculate city that spanned the length and width of the living room. There were stores, shopping malls, cars on the roads, gas stations, schools, homes...I was utterly amazed. It had to have taken that seven-year-old all day to do that. I was afraid to walk through the living room, and I wished I had a camera.
After a long sigh, I regretfully had to tell him, "Justin, I REALLY hate to tell you this son... (and I REALLY did), but you have to pick your toys up".
"Okay, mom," he said. He was such a good kid. He never argued and he always minded. Just this once, I had hoped he would. But, he dutifully put away his legos.
================
No comments:
Post a Comment