"I Have a Pwesent For You!"

Six words that simultaneously send shivers up my spine and pull at my heartstrings. You just never know what you're going to get, almost like a box of chocolates. Now THAT would be a gift I'd gladly accept. Unfortunately, more often than not it's random junk she's collected from around the house, stuffed into her Dora backpack and presented as something wonderful.

It really is adorable, and it warms my heart that she thinks of others and wants to make them happy. Even if she thinks an assortment of the magnetic letters from the magnet board will do that. It takes a great deal of acting for me to pretend that the splitting up and potential loss of some letters of the alphabet does indeed make me happy instead of pushing me one step closer to a nervous breakdown.

After a particularly long and trying day, I decided to plan an activity for the following day and sit her down to do a craft. A Froot Loop necklace that I quickly found out would need to be a bracelet unless it was intended for one of Teagan's dolls. As soon as I handed her the Froot Loops and the pipe cleaner, she came up with the idea of giving it to Daddy. There was some serious concentration and some intense focus that went into this spectacular "pwesent" and above all, love. She was so excited to give it to him i melted my heart.

Needless to say, Daddy was very gracious and excited about his jewelry. Since then, more often than not Brandon comes home to some sort of surprise gift. We have more cards covered in stickers than I know what to do with. We hide every day when we hear the clattering of the garage opening and closing and the squeal of the brakes and "surprise him". Now in addition we surprise him with random gifts that she hides in places significantly less obvious than under a large blanket on the living room floor (one of our go to's.) I let her hide a card once and we couldn't find it for the better part of an hour, so now I take a more active role in the game.

It really is darling the way that she gifts things and tries to make us happy (not that we're teaching her that happiness revolves around gifts) but she certainly enjoys the giving part of it...so far.