The Downside of a Party

The Occasion for the Party

  The thing about a party is, people think gifts.
  Max has begun to discover that gifts
are not always as wonder-full as the anticipation thereof.
  Gifts are always problematic for him.  You don't want to deny him gifts, but, really, what do you give a young man who has more Thomas the Tank Engine than any five year old could play with, but wants nothing else?
  Oh, wait, he wants food.  He needs to lose weight.  His actual food NEEDS are well provided for.
  Is it good to ask/use cash gifts for educational items & therapies that will benefit him, but he doesn't really want?  Memberships or passes to museums & such that he will enjoy powerwalking through?  Someone else will need to accompany him, at a separate admission, but that someone will not be able to see much, if anything, of that venue.
  Graduation gifts are a unique case.  They are often geared toward a new life on one's own - not gonna happen - and/or higher education.  And the gifts are cash more often than in other cases.
  We're still working on getting to middle school level, or, actually, still working on that "reading to learn" stage.
  And cash gifts, won't that bollix up the already difficult SSI/Medicaid waiver even further?  How do you report that for someone like Max anyway? 
  i'd rather not have to think in these terms at all.  But someone has to.
  How about gym membership & water aerobic classes?  Activities that the income we have won't stretch to?