Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Counting Presents


When I was little, I suffered from self-imposed "middle child syndrome". But Stephanie, you say, there are six kids in your family, there is no middle child. True, but since I am #4 and Leslie, #3, is the first girl, I figured that I was near enough to the middle and I was the middle girl, that I qualified as the forgotten middle child.

Because of this, at Christmas time, I would keep a close eye on the presents under the tree. I liked to put them in stacks, one for each child. It was easier to count them that way. I wanted to make sure it was even.

Mike thinks that I am overly concerned with getting Mabel and Oliver the same number of presents. He thinks I am the only one who cares about those sorts of thing.

Wrong. Enter Oliver, our middle child. He was helping me wrap presents today, when he told me exactly how many presents Mabel has under the tree and how she has more than he does. By the end of our wrapping session, the numbers were even. He seemed pretty relieved.

Other ways that Oliver is like me: he refuses to take medicine, he is stubborn, and he likes to get his way. Wait, am I divulging too much information about myself?

12 comments:

  1. um, and if i recall, ahem, until julianne was old enough, you ALWAYS had the most presents. mom was totally on to your self-imposed pity party. :) does oliver go look for all the unwrapped presents and convince his big sister, who happens to love surprises, that it's okay to peek? cuz that would make him a little bit more like you.

    huh? huh? :)

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  2. That's one thing I always appreciated about my parents; their efforts to make everything perfectly even on Christmas morning. So that when my dad would toss us our presents, one by one, as we sat cross-legged around the tree, it always came out evenly. That's so cute about Oliver!

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  3. I was the SAME way. One year I actually had one less and I was devastated. Luckily my dad remembered that there was one he had forgotten to wrap that was still in his closet.

    So now I always make sure that the kids have an equal amount as well.

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  4. Hmmm...I hate medicine, am ridiculously stubborn and I HAVE to have my way. But I'm the last child. Gofigure

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  5. Equal presents is a must! :-)

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  6. That is funny but I'm with you- the # of presents has to be even. (luckily not the $$ amount spent!) I was totally concerned about that and I'm the oldest!

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  7. I used to do the same thing and being the 6th of 7 I have no excuse!

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  8. I suffer from middle child syndrom as well. My mom always tries to have the same number of presents under the tree...or the natives get restless :)

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  9. i did the same thing. so much so that my mom had to put code numbers on the presents so we wouldn't fight or complain about who had the most. even if there was more than another, we didn't know who it was. if i had any other kids, i would do the same thing.

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  10. Well I am the second child of 5, so I don't know what that makes me, but I have been majorly stressing to make sure my kids have the same amount of presents. my daughter has more presents than my son, because it is, of course, incredibly fun to buy for girls. So since she has more, I am giving Jacob a dvd I bought for Alyson (the bee movie) so that they have the same amount of presents.
    My goodness! :-)

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  11. I'm with ya' on the same amount of presents thing. So... you suffer from the middle child syndrome and I suffer (or maybe it shouldn't be called "suffer") from the oldest child syndrome...aka; bossy.

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  12. i am totally the same way, i have a special christmas book that i write all the gifts i buy and i mean down to the stocking stuff. so when eric asks me what we have gotten the kids i just throw him the book and as he can see lily this year has the most gifts. i need to make sure they are even. oh love the calendar. really cute and love the ribbon on the shirt. where did you get that shirt.

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