Go Get Your Jacket

Goody goody

My son's birthday party is this Saturday. Know what I've been consumed with in preparation for the party?

"Goody bags." You got it in one.

I'm not that worried about the birthday cake that I haven't ordered yet, or the decorations that I haven't purchased, or even whether it will rain and force everyone inside. It's the bags.

I have a love-hate relationship with goody bags. I feel torn between the desire to make really, really great bags with lots of fun stuff and the desire to not go bankrupt (or crazy). I love the image of the kids gasping in delight when they open their goody bags, but I hate spending a lot of my hard-earned cash on stuff that might end up in the trash within hours.

The pressure intensifies whenever my son attends a party like the one where every kid got his own Curious George puzzle and a bunch of other toys. It lets us when someone hands over a little sack of plastic garbage. Sometimes it's actually a relief when we go to a party and there's no goody bag at all, but those are getting rare.

I actually succeeded in creating a good-yet-thrifty goody bag for last year's party. I gave every child a plastic beach pail with a shovel, a bottle of bubbles, a mini-can of Play-Doh, and some really nice stickers that I landed at a big sale. So I know I can't top myself this year, and since it's the same group of kids coming, I don't want to do the exact same thing I did last year. Not that anyone would remember. Hey, there's a thought…. Or heck, I could just hand out some dollar bills: here, kid, go buy yourself something nice.

Finally, part of me wonders what the whole point of the goody bag is anyway. To make the kids who attend the party feel better about having to hand over the present to the birthday boy or girl? To say thank you for coming to the party, even though we'll send thank you notes later anyway? To ratchet up the pressure on high-strung people like me who just can't seem to shake off the desire to please everybody all of the time?

I think I'll take D) all of the above.

Où sont les Zooms d'antan?

In case anyone who went to school with me or did feminist street activism with me or took any classes I taught during my "dress like a biker Boy Scout" phase imagined otherwise, my boy/girl twins were not decked out in cheerfully gender-neutral striped pajamas for Chanukah candle-lighting and gifted with matching tool-belts and chemistry sets. After a few wholesome rounds of bath crayons, Play-Doh, and sticker sets, it was off to Grandmama's for Christmas, where la jeune fille got toy kitchen stuff and play food while he made off with infrastructure improvements for his train set and a large, noisy "Mack" from "Cars" with its own small, noisy, and disconcertingly (if accurately) lightning-fast Lightning McQueen. Then back to the home routine with race-car jammies and t-shirts appliqued with wrecking balls and construction cranes for him and a candy-pink "Hello Kitty" Sigg bottle and a ridiculous floofy pseudo-tutu for her. Last night, the Last Night, he got a remote-control  fire truck which not only dashes around at his bidding but relieves him of the responsibility for making "woo-woo" noises on his own, while she got an authentic Bollywood Princess outfit bought in Mumbai by  doting cousins, the alligator purse, and a toy baby carrier to haul her Elmo doll around in. If I'd thought of it I could have ordered a set of these and been done with it:

 

Never too young to kick things in the head

I read Jenn's "What do I,the boy-expert, buy for a boy baby again?" post and laughed and posted it and then got to thinking, hey, I actually have an answer for this! I've given clothes to the last few friend-babies born, too, but both times I think it was partly because I didn't plan ahead or have time to get to the store that carries Manhattan Toy Company products before visiting. I love baby clothes but you have to admit that new parents get tons of them, many of which are the wrong size (newborn size for an eight-pounder who will be out of them in a week, huge fleecies with feet which will fit come August) or too formal for a person who spits up a lot, or just not necessary. Nobody really needs them. Every (new) body needs one of these, though:

Or, if anything, even more urgently, one of these:

It's Manhattan Toy's Jingle Jungle Chiming Ladybug Ball, but we called it the Kickity Bug and it's one of only two infant toys I'm keeping to sigh over later when my kids are clompy and pimply and mean to me. Why is it so great? Even their own web site gets it wrong-- the Kickity bug is not for rolling around in their chubby little hands, it's for kicking around with their chubby little feet. Which they can control months before they can do anything on purpose with their adorably useless starfish-shaped hands. While still in the "boneless sacks of cuteness" phase, they can kick the bug and be rewarded by a sweet chiming sound, which keeps them motivated and busy for longer than you might credit if you haven't played with babies much. I swear this thing taught my babies cause and effect. And it's cute. And inexpensive. So next time you need to bring a baby something, forget the onesies. He has onesies. Bring a kickity thing. The parents, at least, will treasure it forever.

It Figures

I've been bitching for months about how the moms of little girls get to buy all the cute clothes. Or how there are many more cute clothing options for girls. That is when I haven't been bitching about how my friends of baby girls always seem to ask for yellow or otherwise gender-neutral stuff, thereby preventing me from buying fun pink girly stuff (at least, buying fun pink girly stuff without some pangs of guilt). I have a boy, I grouse. I always have to buy boy stuff. I have no trouble buying boy stuff. I know all about boy stuff. I could write a dissertation on boy stuff. I could do it with both hands tied behind my back. But sometimes it'd be fun to really go on a girly-stuff-buying rampage.

Now, I have at least three friends who are having boy babies later this year...and I have absolutely no clue what to get them.

No, really, you shouldn't have

File this little outfit in the "least loved baby gift" category:

Don't get out your reading glasses. I'll zoom in for you, so you can get the full effect.

"No pictures, please!"