The Gift of "Times" rather than the Gift of "Things"

When I think back to my own childhood, it's not the "things" I remember receiving but the "times" I remember having.

Most people who know me well, know that the most important thing to me as a parent is providing my son with a well balanced scale of positive life experiences; a wealth of memories that will sustain him long into adulthood. To me, this is THE best gift one person can give to another.

As I wait for our adventure to begin, I am thinking about how multi-purposed this trip truly is. Yes, it is providing Bo with an opportunity to hone his craft, and yes, it is also providing his mother with an opportunity to see daily life unfold in a new city, but even more importantly, it's going to provide us with some wonderful memories to reflect back on.

Okay, I can't lie. There are some "things" I remember from my childhood,  like the Chatty Cathy doll who stopped being chatty when her string was pulled too violently one day by someone who shall remain nameless; or my Chrissy doll that I got when I was 9 years old. I remember her only because of her amazing hair, which by the end of her usefulness to me, was not so amazing. For those of you who don't know, Chrissy had hair that grew out of the top of her head by turning a knob on her back. One day I"grew" her hair and then promptly chopped it all off with a pair of scissors. After becoming disenchanted with her newly shorn locks, I quickly began to turn the knob waiting for more hair to flow out of the top of her head. Nothing happened. Sadly, I realized what had transpired, and into the trash she went. It seems that all of these "things" ended up in the trash after they had lost their usefulness to me. Where was the long term value in them? What could they provide to me later on? How did they help define who I am today? The answers to these questions are as follows: nothing, nothing, and yes let's hear it again...nothing.

The truly wonderful memories we create with each other are as nourishing for our souls as water is to our bodies. They are the ties that bind us together and provide us joy in the good times, and comfort in the bad. Throughout my son's life, I have tried to instill in him the importance of having such memories to reflect on later in life. He is beginning to get the picture as I am starting to see him make more choices in his life based on the inherent and long term value of something, rather than what he can get for it at Game Stop when it has outlived its usefulness.