... i give the kids bookstore gift certificates for their birthdays ... i do this in part because i've absolutely no idea what to get them, but mostly as a major component of my rather devious plan to addict them to finding great happiness in visiting bookstores ... with all the going-ons of the season it ended up that in a single outing i brought tom, danny, and walker to the children's bookcellar in downtown waterville ...
... when we arrived tom made a reasonable effort to peruse the shelves, but even before we left the house it was clear he'd already decided on the book he wanted ...
... walker, however, was a different story ... he kept referring to his gift certificate, "mr. groleau, do i have enough for this" ...
... danny was the man of all seasons ... upon entering the store he kicked into his special "high rpm" mode and proceeded to investigate each and every item on the shelves ...
... walker finally settled on a set of "100% u.s. made" roy toy building logs ... nothing against lego blocks, of course, but, after all, how could he resist "real wood logs" that have been made by the same maine family for almost 100 years ...
... even after he'd bought them, with a bit of brotherly help covering the tax, he enjoyed looking at all the other cool stuff ...
... dan's approach was radically different ... i'm not sure about his math knowledge, but it was clear he possesses intuitive number/geometry theory ability ... as he investigated each item he would ask me its price ... i could sense that he saw them as pieces of a puzzle, one of which its outline was the amount of his gift certificate ...
... towards the end of our excursion tom decided to play a little tease with his brothers ... they, with their purchases firmly in hand, he, "oh ... isn't this interesting" ...
... happy birthday, tom, danny, walker, however, in terms of gifts, i think i got the way better end of the deal ... !!! ...