What is the most memorable gift you have received?

This is a loaded question! I’m going to answer in generalities.

One of my love languages is gifts, but really only if they’re thoughtful. I can buy myself stuff, but to have someone put a bit of thought into something they think I’ll enjoy – however small – really means something.

Grant (6) made me a necklace about a year ago at aftercare. I love it. It’s on a stretchy string (you know what I mean?) and has random beads on it, and it says “G R A N T” in those block letters. Couldn’t be more perfect. He also nearly daily makes me pictures at aftercare that say “I love you mom” (though now they’re more often saying “I love mom and dad,” which is also cool). Here’s a piece of art he created for me one day at home (I made him one, too). He asked me to put it up in my office, so I did (photobomb by Henry as a kindergartner).

Eleanor brings me little gifts from school. While individually, they may seem somewhat incomprehensible, they are somehow a perfectly curated group, accumulated over months. She made the frog (it’s holding a seashell, how cute is that), a rock, a rock that she has added a face to, by cutting individual features out of a magazine, and her own picture cut into a raindrop (so she can join the water cycle).

Henry doesn’t usually give me things, but he shows me a lot. He does drawings that are great, he makes Lego creations, and he does neat stuff in Scratch and Minecraft (and stuff in Roblox, but I’m less into that). He shows me all of it. He also really makes me laugh – right now he’s doing a thing where if I blow him a kiss, he grabs it out of the air and eats it. It maybe doesn’t sound funny, but it makes me giggle every time. These may not sound like traditional gifts, but I consider them gifts.

Anyway, that’s the best answer I think I can give.