setting myself up for disaster

Some day I will learn. Today is just another experience in the life of a mother. Don't expect your 4 year old negotiator to understand the value of a last-minute homemade Valentine's gift when he saw you get something nice.
I took the boys on this great outing yesterday only to realize that it didn't replace a wrapped Valentine gift. Last night, after a long day of play and an evening at the gym, my husband surprisingly stopped by the mall on the way home. He parks in the perfect place to aquire a double stroller from customer service, takes us directly to the food court to get the boys an ice cream to occupy their time while we shopped, and then took me shopping for the perfect Valentine treasures! What a nice guy...thoughtful, sweet, caring, and spontaneous. Our oldest was perfectly content until my husband comes out of Brighton with a wrapped package. The whole way home all he could say was that he didn't get a 'present'. I tried to explain that his whole day was our Valentine's gift to him. That getting to go to the museum, see Clifford, and the binoculars he picked out in the gift shop were all a really big deal. It was a lost cause. 4 year olds tend to have a one track mind on issues like this. There is sometimes no explanation that makes things better.
You see, my husband and I came from very different backgrounds. My parents divorced when I was 9 and my mom had never worked aside from being a stay at home sitter for another family. My grandparents were not your typical come over and just pick you up for a shopping spree kind of grandparents. My 72 year old grandmother would now rock climb to my rescue just to take me shoe shopping...the woman has more shoes than Oprah and all are quite sassy, but when my grandfather was still alive that would not have always been the case. With 4 kids and a single newly employed mother we struggled, to say the least. My husbands family was more well off. I wasn't even sure how to order a steak, so when we were first dating I always ordered chicken until I finally told him I didn't think I had ever eaten half of the menu choices if any. He was kind enough to explain and help me out. His father was constantly moving them to improve his pay and their livelyhood. His parents did eventually divorce when he was in college. Very sad, yet a harse reality that we face daily. Both of our fathers remarried and his dad has a child 4 months younger than our oldest. They are great friends, yet the whole -he's your uncle- thing will hopefully never be discussed until they are old enough to get it.
Now that we have our own children we have tried to work really hard at not spoiling them ourselves, but when you throw in the grandparents we have a big issue! With both grandmas, both grandpas, not to mention all the aunts, uncles and step-grandparent involvement it is no wonder that our 4 year old was confused with a non-wrapped gift. In a situation like this you want to crawl in a hole and ask yourself what you have done wrong. I can only hope that when we get more settled here, he will understand that we are not in OK anymore.
Since the whole incident happened on Feb. 13th I woke up early the morning of the 14th and printed off some much desired Power Ranger coloring sheets from the internet along with some other super hero friends. I carefully wrapped it in the beautiful Brighton tissue paper and toole bow. When he woke up I said, "Guess what Brother Bear, you do have a present!" He was so excited and began digging in. My heart broke when, after all of the discussion the night before about how a gift isn't always wrapped and because we now live far away from all grandmas you may not always have something in a nice neat package, he finished opening it and said,"This is nothin' but coloring sheets!"
I said, "Just what you wanted!"
He acted very quietly disappointed, but I think knew better than to say anything else. After a few hours of play and cartoons, he was telling the dog sorry for something then looked at me and said sorry about the pictures. He since colored them all. Maybe there is hope afterall!