Ouch!

[Heavenly]

We were in the car today and Elijah said to me, "Why do you always buy me toys when we go to Value Village (a thrift superstore)?" And I answered, "Because I love you." He replied, "I don't want you to buy me stuff, I want you to spend more time playing with me." Ouch! You could have ripped my heart in two. I've been sick for 8 months now, alot of the time, and I haven't been doing much playing. I promised I will try much harder to play with him. I can't believe a 3.5 year old could be so insightful as we have never said anything like that to him before.

[momatheart23]

children are SO insightful, it boggles my mind the stuff my 3 year old "knows", and he is limited by what he can say, imagine all that he knows and can't verbally express

[Meiri]

Be thankful that he's communicating how he feels loved. He wants time not gifts. Some kids are the other way around, some feel loved in different ways.

I'll willing to bet that what makes You feel loved is when someone gets you a gift. We tend to express the love language that makes us feel loved if we don't realize that the recipient may have a different need.

If you can find yourself a copy of Five Languages of Love (or something like that), it's a useful concept, and is not limited to Christianity despite the language use in the book being limited to Christianity.