Mid November begins the birthday season for us, when we have five birthdays in five weeks. Plus, all the commotion of Thanksgiving, preparations for Christmas and I'm trying to finish my book here. So, it sucks. It does every year. And none of us particularly like cake, which is why we switched it up for fondue this year.
So every year I have to double up on gifts to get my kids, all except Jade who had the good sense to be born in June. Thank god. Not only that, the boys only want things that explode, shoot things, restrain someone and uranium. Which I think is an elementally bad idea. And not conducive to world peace. The girls…well, Ember would like a cheetah cub. And Jade would like world peace. So really, I've got nothing to work with here. NOTHING!
Not only that, a lot of our friends are also Scorpios and Sagittarians. So, Jade was invited to a party scheduled weeks ahead of time. I technically had plenty of time to take her to the store to choose a gift for her friend. But, life got in the way and that didn't happen. So a couple days before the party I was scrambling.
"What do you want me to get for Maddy's birthday?" I inquired.
"I don't know." She said in typical teen discourse. Unless that's "I know". It's one or the other.
"They don't sell I don't know. Got anything else?"
Tween shrug smirk hand gesture combo.
So when I went to the store to get bubble wrap and the packaging tape I need to ship gifts off via mail, I thought of it. An itunes card. Every 12 year old girl loves music. Done!
When Jade got home from school I proudly showed her my purchase. "I don't think she has an iPod." Why did that not even occur to me. So I fb messaged her mom. Sure enough, no ipod. Crap. Back to square one. Or negative square one.
"Ok, so do you have any new ideas for a gift?" I beg.
"No. She likes acting." As if that helps me at all.
The next day, I was back at Target. Perusing the aisles slowly like a pedophile. Trying my best to channel my inner 12 year old girl. Scott Baio. Skateboards. Baseball shirts. Jeans with the knees blown out. Roller skates. Worms. Braces, rubber bands AND a headgear. Ok, this is not working.
Until, I saw it, a cute colorful little pencil bag. And little lotions and hand sanitizers that smelled like Love's Baby Soft and Brown Sugar. That's it…BINGO!
When Jade gets home from school on the day of the party, she peers in the bag.
"WHAT's THIS?" She asks with disdain.
"That's an awesome gift. And if you don't want to give it to her, I'll go to the sleepover and give it to her."
Except there was one huge flaw with that. I was already going out to a friends birthday party that very same night. Because it's November people! And forget about December. I'm booked all month.
Now accepting applications for friends born in July and August. I don't know if we're astrologically compatible or not. And frankly I don't even care. I would throw you an awesome pool party with slushy drinks. And a slip and slide. Unless you prefer jello wrestling. It would be awesome!
ADDENDUM: I had this post in my draft file for about 3 days. It was edited to perfection. I went to post it this morning and somehow deleted it. The whole fucking thing. Of course I did. Because of course today is River's 14th birthday! And tomorrow is my sister's birthday. Do you see what I mean here? It's freakin' Birthday season people! And I'm frantic. Do not get in my way. Especially not anywhere near the checkout line.
November/early December is birthday season here too. We 6 between Nov 4 and Dec 4. Smile and love it, they are people you love.
ReplyDeleteWell, that's just unfair. Maybe a couple of your kids would buy into celebrating their half-birthdays instead, given that they would get more attention (theoretically, anyway). At least you have an iTunes card you can give one of your kids.
ReplyDeleteMy birthday is July 12 and I had never had a birthday party when I was young, I had a very sensible mother who said "what's the use of throwing a party when everybody is on a holiday?". See, Marie, I'd be an easy case, games fine with me, no iTunes card as they did not have apple at that time either.
ReplyDeleteMay you could settle for celebrating name days as they do here in Europe (do they still?) in Catholic families?
@ Mt.Mom-This is true.
ReplyDelete@BOG-Or maybe we could celebrate biannually?
@Barbara-Application accepted! And name days? Speaking of Catholic families, my irish twins are both 14 this month.
I feel for you. We have 5 b-days in July/August. And I complain about it every year. ANd now I see that it could be worse. I could have Christmas and Thanksgiving to contend with too! So there you made my day. Although I always complain about Christmas too. IN German tradition, we give our 4 kids Advent calendars every year (not the store bought kind, the home made kind with thoughtful gifts hand-wrapped, times 18 days times 4 kids - that's a lot of thinking and wrapping!) Girls are easy, but what do you give a 17-year old boy?
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I can help you out on the cheetah cub front. When we lived in South Africa, we adopted a cheetah. Just by giving money for food, we didn't actually have to have the cheetah with us. You might think it's lame, but my daughter still tells everyone we meet that we have an adoptive cheetah named Porsche (I forgot to tell her that we stopped paying after the first year). It makes for a great story on "this is me" posters at school. Here is my blog post with a link to where you can do this, and it's got some cheetah facts too which Ember might like to read about:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.joburgexpat.com/2011/01/ann-van-dyk-cheetah-centre-of-de-wildt.html
@Sine- It can always get worse! And my daughter is only into the having it live with us and raise it kinda cheetah cub, unfortunately. I feel like I'm already raising cheetah cubs!
ReplyDelete