There, we said it! It seems no matter where we go, our son Joey (age 37) becomes a magnet to many generous caring and loving people giving him free things! We are here to tell you that he very much enjoys the blessing, as do we. We’ve had friends and acquaintances on Facebook see things Joey enjoys (bobble heads, Christmas nutcrackers, sports hats and gear, etc.) and ask via Cindi if they can give him something. We are most blessed to allow others to bless Joey and be blessed in the process. But we find ourselves even chuckling when we are out in public and strangers sometimes do the same thing. We call Joey our free magnet! Joey shyly says thank you and then later talks up a storm to us about how excited he is about this new gift!
Our girls always laughed with us at the attention Joey got and have gotten used to him being the free magnet and never seemed (even as little girls) to be bothered by it. We even asked them and they said, “NO! LOL!” We all know that Joey endears himself to others just because he is “special” and often is very loving and kind (notice I’m giving some room here to let you all know he does have his moments!)
But while there were times Joey was the center of attention and gift giving, we tried to even the score with our girls and make sure they got individual attention, too! We remember times when the children were young, we would do what we thought was very special and take time to be with just our girls. We would take Joey to Grandpa and Grandma Ferrinis where he would be happy, and then take the girls out to do something special (usually something Joey couldn’t do, wouldn’t have wanted to do, or wouldn’t have been cooperative doing!) We did this quite a few times, when behold, one of the girls said to us from the back seat of the car, “Ya know, Mom and Dad, we think you don’t love us as much as you love Joey.” Well, that took us by as much of a surprise as a snowfall in July in Cleveland, OH!