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Did you give your 16 year old son anything special for his birthday?


Prairie~Phlox
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Do you have any special plans re: driving?  A car?  Privileges?  Something along those lines?

 

I honestly can't remember what we did for our 24 year old when he turned 16.   :blushing: Oops.  It could be the year that he asked for "one last Lego gift" and we spent a gazillion dollars on the always-coveted Star Wars kit.  (Lego/Star Wars people will probably know the one.) But I'm not sure.  

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No, but for his 18th birthday we gave him a very high quality waterproof jacket that he wears daily during the rainy season and that is also great for hiking and skiing. I expect it will last him for many, many years. This is what he requested when we asked him about ideas for a special gift.

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My grandfather gave my brother a nice shaving kit, with the kind of brush and soap he had always used. My brother is now in his 30s and still uses that gift.

 

Also my mom had a pair of cufflinks made from a pair of her mother's earrings. I'm not sure how much he appreciated them at 16 (we had lost my grandmother several months prior), but I know he has worn them on notable occasions in his life, including his wedding day. Boys don't have a lot of opportunities for family jewelry, so she though this was a nice way to preserve some for him.

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One got Very Expensive Sporting Equipment...he plays a Very Expensive Sport and the equipment is Necessary to Keep Life and Limb safe. :D

 

The Other doesn't play a Very Expensive Sport but he wanted a Very Expensive Pair of Shoes. but I wanted it to be a bit more festive and dramatic and special. So I bought him 15 other gifts...mostly little things like his favorite drink, a couple nice pens, socks, a tie, gift cards (small amounts) to favorite restaurants. I wrapped everything up in coordinating paper and curly ribbon and piled it all on the dining room table.

 

They both absolutely loved their gifts.

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On my son's 16th birthday, I woke him up and told him to get his shoes on to go get his driver's license. That was HUGE for him. He had been in the virtual dog house for months due to a driving "incident" and hadn't even been allowed behind the wheel for those months . . . I hadn't planned to let him get his license on his birthday because of said incident . . . but, it so happened that my mom was actively dying that week (in our shared home, hospice), so everything of course was sad and traumatic then. Mom had been an overly permissive and very forgiving parent . . . So, I decided in her honor to make Grandma's last gift to him getting his DL and forgetting the incident . . . despite the incident and my previously imposed consequences.

 

For my son, who has been vehicularly obsessed since infancy, there was no better gift. 

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On my son's 16th birthday, I woke him up and told him to get his shoes on to go get his driver's license. That was HUGE for him. He had been in the virtual dog house for months due to a driving "incident" and hadn't even been allowed behind the wheel for those months . . . I hadn't planned to let him get his license on his birthday because of said incident . . . but, it so happened that my mom was actively dying that week (in our shared home, hospice), so everything of course was sad and traumatic then. Mom had been an overly permissive and very forgiving parent . . . So, I decided in her honor to make Grandma's last gift to him getting his DL and forgetting the incident . . . despite the incident and my previously imposed consequences.

 

For my son, who has been vehicularly obsessed since infancy, there was no better gift. 

 

That's so sweet! I have tears in my eyes... 

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That's so sweet! I have tears in my eyes... 

 

Aww, thanks. I do, too, lol. I felt very conflicted when I made the decision to leave my mom's side that day, but I felt like my kid needed something good to remember from what had long been a birthday he'd longed for but now was quite tragic. At the time, I felt like I was just doing it for him, and taking away from Mom, but now I feel a bit differently. I am glad I did it, because it does give me a really nice memory to hold on to of her dying, not just of my son's birthday. It was so appropriate of a thing to do because of the kind of mom my mom was. It just came to me that morning when I woke up on my boy's long awaited birthday, with no plans of anything fun at all (all party plans had already been canceled) . . . and although I had mixed feelings about it at first, as time goes on, my feelings are increasingly positive, as I do feel like it honored mom and it makes me happy to think of that.

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