Life Lessons that Don't Work

You know that saying "It's better to give than to receive"?  Great in theory; great for adults; great for people with the intellectual capacity to understand generosity and its importance... but try explaining this concept to a 2 year old who is picking out a gift for a friend's birthday party.

Doesn't quite resonate.

The journey started out pretty well.  I told Niall that we were going to pick out a present for Jack, to which Niall immediately replied "TWUCK!"  And I encouraged his enthusiasm for Jack's special day by saying "What a great idea- we'll get him a truck... you can pick it out!"  This was very exciting to him.

But not quite as exciting as seeing this guy as we were walking down the steps:

Looks like he may be in need of a diaper change there- don't judge me ;)

Anyway, back to the task at hand... getting Jack's present.  When we got to the toy store, Niall tested out a variety of trucks and cars before deciding which one would be good enough to serve as Jack's special birthday present.  I was careful to keep reminding Niall that this was Jack's present-- "Which present do you think Jack would like the most?"

And he was pretty much on board.  He kept repeating "Jack's twuck!"  What a great job Niall did, I thought.

Until we got home.  Which was when Niall wanted to take Jack's truck out of the box and play with it.  It's pretty much pure torture for this awesome fire truck to be sitting in front of him all night and he can't play with it.

So I decided to wrap it up and tell Niall that Jack would open it tomorrow.  Which was even more torture.  Now the fire truck that he couldn't take out of the box was covered in paper so that he couldn't even look at it.  Good one, mommy.

Not a pretty evening.  Am I going to go through this every time we have to go to a birthday party??

Niall loves your votes!