Keeping it equal

Since May third nineteen ninety three, when Mike and I were blessed with Michael, we made a promise to ourselves. This promise being that since we loved our ,then two, children equally that we would always make a conscious effort to make sure that they were always treated equally. This may sound like a no brainier to most of you but I have personally witnessed Mothers and even Grandmothers who have told me point blank that so and so was their favorite child or favorite grandchild. No matter how many times I have heard this sort of thing it has always hurt my heart for the child, grandchild, children, grandchildren that were not the coveted favorite. When Robby was born three years after Michael we again made this simple promise. Because of these promises, I am always aware of not only how I treat all three of my children but how it appears to my three children that they are treated equal. This is not saying that when one has gone through a period of misbehavior that we are not as tough as we can be on them. After all it is out of Love for our children that we punish them and teach them right from wrong.
This being said , Christmas time is one time in particular when we are very aware that our kids are treated equal in many ways. One of which is making sure that everyone receives equal gifts. This is not always easy as they each have their unique likes and dislikes so rather than making sure that everyone gets the same things, we have set a price amount which is spent on each child. The kids can get one gift or twenty, depending on their wish list but in the end the total spent on each child is equal. Well within a dollar, as equality to the penny would be just the thing to set me over the proverbial edge, or at least that is how I have always thought.However this year it just sort of worked out that in addition to keeping the cost within a dollar( actually twenty four cents this year) I have also ended up with the same amount of presents per child. Since this may never happen again I am so proud of myself! The only problem is now that I have to resist the urge to buy any last minute little things . Thankfully I have many things to keep me busy rather than shopping.