Give the Gift of Time

Here’s the thing. We expect our children to make us gifts, and they expect us to buy them gifts. It’s a pretty good system. We get their love and time. They get a thing to play with.

But what if we reversed that. What if we gave our children our valuable time?

Let me paint you a picture, or paint your boots, rather.

Donna is a busy, busy woman. She runs her own company. She’s head of three different committees. She buys her twin daughters each a new toy almost every weekend to apologize for not making it to some event or other. Donna’s satisfied because every time her daughters snatch the toy away, bouncing and gleeful. She has everything to give her daughters but time. But that’s OK, because her daughters’ are happy, right?

Then one rainy day Donna is picking up the twins’ room. Their toy chest is full of loved birthday gifts and toys from daddy. But stuffed behind a toy chest she finds all the apology toys she has ever given her them, forgotten and dusty.

Donna truly looks at the twins’ room for the first time in a long while. It’s cover in prized possessions, pictures and little wooden objects, all hand painted, many with the twins’ favorite character, Gigi the Bunny. Donna thinks back to the gifts each daughter has given her, mostly painted pictures.

Then she sees the two My Design: Paint Your Boots kits that she bought the twins several weeks ago. These paint your boots are untouched. Paint your shoes, she thinks. That’s unique! Donna gets them out, takes them to her own room, and lays out the brushes and non-toxic, waterproof paints. She paints   the blank boots over with Eli the Elephant and Mandy the Giraffe.

When she gives the painted boots to her daughters, two identical grins spread over the girls’ faces. The twins slip the boots on, bouncing. Then they each grab one of their mother’s hands and drag her out in the rain.

Splashing in the puddles, Donna feels truly happy for the first time in a long while. She has given her daughters the best-personalized hand made gift.