There are two ways to germinate really old seed -that have had a very high rate of success that I know of. The first is- take about 7 or 8 seeds and place them just under the surface of some of your ordinary garden soil where you usually grow your tomatoes-in a flat container about three inches deep, buried to the same depth as the surrounding soil suface, and just leave them there all winter long, frost, ice, snow, rain etc, in the spring most of them will germinate naturaly around mid may, a bit late but once potted up they will soon catch up. The second method well tried and tested- involves the plastic bag zip lock type bags, into which is placed a square of folded kitchen roll tissue- previously soaked in a mixture of cold tea (without the sugar and milk) just straight out the tea pot, and a few drops of seaweed liquid extract, wet the tissue right through and squeeze it out to a fairly damp pad, place in bag, lay your seeds (any number of seeds) 10 to 20 on the surface of the pad and zip up the bag- place in a warm place around 75 deg F and wait up to three weeks or less, sometimes only a few days, check them about every day after the fifth day thro to the three week point, and remove carefully any that germinate, with a couple of wooden tooth picks (which becomes easier with practice) and place them in a seedling mixture just under the surface and in a couple or three days -up they come as large as life. If you do succeed -save me a few seeds to try for next season :)

I'm with mary_c. If you're estranged, why are you stressing over this?? I do not buy b'day gifts for my great-nephews/nieces & have had to quit doing for Christmas. And there's no way I'd ever be able to spend 35 or more per child. However, if you still feel you must do something, go the savings acct route. One g'dau is very unappreciative so I opened a savings acct for my gr-g'son for his Christmas & will add to it this year. Until g'dau gives me his SSN, his amt. is a 'sub-account' to my savings acct, & his mother cannot touch it. If left as it, when I die, the administrator of my estate can put it into an acct just for the gr-g'son. I expect to do the same with a sibling due any day. The mother, sadly, just does not appreciate gifts. This way, I can put back some for him/them to have when they turn 18. My g'dau knows about the account, but she does NOT know the $$$ nor will I tell her.

I have 10 and 12 year old boys. This is a hard year to shop. Mine are done with toys. You might look up some Oklahoma t-shirts or sports teams, etc. Sometimes stuff like that is considered to be pretty cool if coming from the US. Size wise, I'd look at Youth large and Adult small-medium. Post cards would be neat. Are our toys like an 8 ball or slinkies or even Twister available in Germany? They are fun. Adding: Not sure of the availability of duct tape in Germany. It comes in all colors and sizes. My kids love it for all sorts of things including making duct tape wallets. This post was edited by adellabedella on Thu, Dec 6, 12 at 18:38

Thanks, Fun2BHere! I'll check them out. Sonni1, great notion if his free time weren't all taken up by swim. Anglophilia, many thanks for the perspective and insight into what's coming. Islay is quite right that he doesn't need a special diet at his age. Just one that's more meat and vegetables, less cheese and sweets, than your average kid or cookbook. The fitness cookbooks might be good for that. I'll give them a close look. I talked to the mom about this today, armed with suggestions from you all. She seemed to like the idea of the wok, and talked it out. In the end, we decided together that the boy isn't quite ready for it. It came up without prompting that she already gets Cooking Light. I'm leaning toward books and maybe some specialty tools.