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Every parent of young children knows the mixed "pleasure" of receiving gifts from your little ones! In many ways, it is so heartwarming that there has been time and thought put into making and finding treasures of untold importance to give... and my heart just bursts when they come into the room, hiding something behind their back (or asking you to close your eyes...) with a look of barely contained excitement in their eyes!

Of course, all of this usually requires a touch of "direction" from the other parent as well... but once the kids are set on the path, they really get moving and involved and absorbed in their singular task of making a gift!

As the kids get older, there comes a change in the gifts... as they are perhaps more "useful" but still given with the same sense of openness and joy. My birthday was earlier in the year, but I'm just writing about it now! It is the sort of thing that means not so much to me, but it is still nice to be treated like a prince for a day! 

My oldest is now old enough to know of the things that I like... and she suggested to my wife that they get some comic compilations for me. I think my wife vetoed the idea of getting me some computer games.. or a new laptop! I guess part of the inspiration for the gift was the fact that I had managed to get the two girls compilations of their favourite comic book characters not so long ago (My Little Pony for the young one and Peanuts for the older girl). 

So, I was given these two pretty awesome compilations! The Last Man and The Watchmen... both being series that I had known much about, but never picked up. So, these are very welcome additions to my collection... I can't wait to start on them. I think I had watched the Watchmen (the movie) before, so I'm incredibly curious to see what the original source material is like! 

The Last Man is something that I've heard other people talking about, but I've never really known what it is about. I suspect it is a good one though! 

Of course, the girls didn't go to the comic book store to choose these... they are touch in the realm of "not for kids"! My wife said it was really strange going to the comic book store... the stereotypical situation of clueless girl in a nerdy comic book store where she is the only girl in the store! She said that the store person had to help her a lot, as she knew absolutely NOTHING about comics!


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The rest of the presents were much more personal in nature... and so they are valued even more highly... even if they weren't totally successful! 

My older girl had opted to try for a bit of an ambitious project... making paper mache bowls for me to store things in. Unfortunately, the recipe that my wife had found for the paper mache didn't really work... and after several days, the paper casts hand't set... instead, they were rotting! I can't describe how "interesting" they smelt! For days beforehand, I was wandering around the house thinking that a rat or mouse had died somewhere and searching for it... little did I know that it was the hidden casts!

So, they were still soggy... but I assured my oldest that it didn't matter that they didn't work! She was a bit upset and worried that I would be disappointed... When you are a child, these things are huge in your mind (I remember still some things that I thought that my parents would have been not so proud of... but I suspect that it was just a passing thing for them...). 

We agreed that we would try again a different time with a different recipe.. and that we could do it together!


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... and I had a portrait from my youngest! She is currently in the blob-people stage of drawing. So, actively finished with the scribbles and moving forward into the modernistic abstract renditions of people and landscapes! 

I'm the purple blob at the top... and you can definitely see the hair on the top... with the correct number of arms and legs! There are two eyes, and two ears and nose... and I think that the other bit at the bottom is the part where I don't shave often enough!

I would like to think that my body shape is a little better than that... but you can't argue with the artiste!




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