One Proud Dad

This weekend I became one proud dad. I've never been a father, but I am a Dad to a great 8 year old step-son. He has grandparents who do the whole Advent presents thing (these are the ex's parents), so he gets to unwrap 1 present a day from December 1 until Christmas. These aren't your typical little things or consumables either as they own and run a gift shop. He gets lots of cool stuff that takes up space. Like the Newton's cradle with the little metal balls that swing back and forth.

So, as frustrating as that gets, we often end up trying to entice him to make room for stuff in his room this time of year by going through and getting rid of toys he doesn't use. Him and the wife were working on that this weekend and found about 4 good sized boxes to fill with toys and books he no longer needs. We took that over to my mother-in-law this weekend as her church is putting on a holiday shopping event for immigrant families who don't have the money to buy stuff for their kids.

Before we went over to drop stuff off, we finally took care of the mother-in-law's birthday present as well. Her birthday was last Thursday and we were also taking over a homemade cake as well. For her gift, we donated some extra money to the local Humane Society in her name.

When we finished with that, the boy had an idea. He asked, knowing dad had paid the mortgage twice and we didn't have much money, if we could go by the bank and get some of his money to buy some dog toys to take to the Humane Society. What a great idea! We had actually done this for his birthday this year and asked the other kids to bring dog toys that we took by and donated.

Unfortunately, the account he was talking about was the E*Trade account we keep his allowance in! I had to tell him it was a great idea, but it wasn't some place we could just go and get it. I get paid tomorrow, so this weekend the list definitely will include a trip to the pet store and Humane Society. It's a good feeling to know we are teaching him to be so giving, especially this time of year.