Grandkids hard to shop for

Jacob says he is a koala bear. That was the caption on a recent photograph I saw of my four-year-old grandson. He was halfway up a tree and wrapped around a branch. He did, indeed, look like a koala bear.
The question is, how do I shop for a koala bear? It won’t be any easier to shop for a couple of wild deer, like Jacob and his little brother were pretending to be a few days before the koala bear incident. Emma also gets in on the fun as she has an active imagination to rival those of her brothers. I think she was the one who encouraged him to climb the tree as she is an excellent tree climber herself.
Due to the fact that their presents must be in the mail soon, I need to start the Christmas shopping early. I consider early to be anytime before Thanksgiving. The problem is, that these children rarely play with toys. They prefer to use their toys to carpet their rooms before abandoning them to climb trees, unearth frogs from abandoned stumps, rope each other with the dog’s leash and play with any and everything that is not man-made.
This is a good thing, but it does make it hard to shop.
The suggestion has come that I arm them with an assortment of Nerf weapons. Living in Texas, and being born into a family of hunters, this is a logical option. The problem is that I am ambivalent about guns. On the one hand, I firmly believe that nobody needs a gun unless they are a member of the military or the police. On the other hand, I grew up playing with toy guns and have never had the desire to shoot anybody. Still, indoctrinating small children into the gun culture in this country bothers me.
It has also been suggested that I go to the used book store and buy 25 books, one for each December day before Christmas. This is a possibility, as I have already collected a new book or two to be sent in the next “care package.”
I love Christmas shopping for small children. I see so many things that I think they would like. There are things for them to create, color, put together or grow. Anything that makes a mess is sure to be a success in their eyes. Yet, I know that unless I am there to do it with them, many of these will end up in the cupboard to await our next visit.
What they would really enjoy would be their own forest of trees to climb. They would like caves to explore. They would like creeks to throw rocks into. They would like tiny lizards to catch. But they already have most of that on a small scale. Well, maybe not the caves, but they do have a creek down the street and if it rains, then they have a huge mud wallow that is normally called a front yard. There are tiny lizards that are usually, but not always, able to outrun small children. There are plenty of trees to climb now that most of the poison ivy has been eliminated.
True, they would prefer that their grandparents came down and played with them rather than send stuff through the mail. But with my mom’s recent health problems, I am torn. I would love to spend a week with them but, for now, am too afraid to go so far away from my mom. So I am left to wander the toy aisles, looking for that perfect present.
It is hard to buy presents for a koala bear, a deer or even a tree-climbing girl. I do need to pick something soon as the holidays are right around the corner. Perhaps I should get some eucalyptus leaves for the koala, a salt block for the deer and a harness for the tree climbers? I wish I could find some of those airbags that stunt people fall into. That would be perfect. Until then, I’ll take any and all suggestions.[[In-content Ad]]