I thank you all so much for your responses. I feel a lot better now and went ahead and finalized my Amazon order which consists entirely of things I picked to make my son happy, even if they aren't toys
I have so many memories of my childhood and how much I loved toys. I'll never forget the Christmas morning I woke up with Swift Heart Rabbit in bed with me or all of the hours I spent with My Little Pony, Strawberry Shortcake, Rainbow Brite, Thundercats, Popples, Transformers, He-man/She-ra, Sylvanian Families, etc. And there was always Lite Brite and those read along record sets and lego and all of my art supplies. I played by myself most of the time and was very content to do so.
DS is so different. He wants to play with someone else at all times. As much as I remember setting up scenes and stories with my toys and pretending for hours on end, I don't seem to be able to tolerate it at all anymore. I honestly have fallen asleep trying to engage DS in pretend play because I'm so bored. He will play pretend with other kids, but never on his own. And obviously not with me :p I wonder if other parents are just full of imaginative ideas and are better able to sell pretend play at home? Whatever part of me was able to enjoy pretending apparently fully matured into a 100% boring adult brain!
BTW, no puppies allowed here. We have a geriatric cat who is enough trouble and I could never take care of a pet that is so dependent on me. Plus DS is afraid of dogs. But, I did think that puppy was the best answer I got, I had a good lol. Maybe we could foster a puppy this summer for a bit, get the experience without the long term responsibility and hopefully help DS get over his fear a bit. After all, who could be afraid of a fuzzy little puppy? OTOH, it will probably pee on the floor and bark every time someone walks past the house... well, I'll at least consider it.
Also all gifts of cash or gift cards never get used by DS. He offers to give me his money to help with groceries or to help pay for our new house or even asks to give it to homeless people and has no interest in going out and spending it. The last time I took him somewhere with his money and encouraged him to pick something he decided the prices were too high and said everything wasn't a good value (and he was right, we were at Disney!) He asks me to spend his gift cards for him on things he will like. He has a Toys R Us gift card to spend sitting around here somewhere. I might end up using it to buy for his friends!
At any rate, you guys really helped me out here. I was feeling pretty... guilty maybe? And at least a little confused. We don't do any regularly scheduled activities together, but we have a Y membership and a membership for the local arboretum and I'm taking him to his first musical this year. He loves hiking and taking walks and we try to get out once a week to do something as a family. He's a happy kid, so I guess I shouldn't worry so much. He's currently using a piece of track from his Knex roller coaster set that he has looped into a circle to throw with his wrist across the room to score points based on where it lands on the markers he placed on the floor (literally markers, the art supply type). Of course he's bugging me to take a turn so he can compete against me. He also just asked me if I know what a whisk is... what an odd question and totally out of context. Well, I'm off to play a game of, er, whatever
