This is the time of year my mom and I notice ourselves craving spring colors. “Oh, soon the SPRING STUFF will be here!” we exclaim as we walk through the aisles of clearance blankets in the browns and wines and golds and deep olives that looked so warm and cozy a couple of months earlier and now look heavy and dark. It’s still winter, but we’re pining for spring.

Grasslands Road Just Desserts Parfait Cups (photo from Amazon.com). Ahhhhhhh.

Geninne Zlatkis Walkabout Framed Print (photo from UrbanOutfitters.com). Spring bird! With flowers!
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Some of these books are not yet published; some have been published but they’re on my wish list so I have to wait until my birthday; some are books I’m waiting for from the library; some are “Other; please explain.” But these are the books I’m looking forward to:

Are You My Mother? by Alison Bechdel (photo from Amazon.com). I loved her book Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic

This is How: Proven Aid in Overcoming Shyness, Molestation, Fatness, Spinsterhood, Grief, Disease, Lushery, Decrepitude & More. For Young and Old Alike by Augusten Burroughs. I always find his books distressing, and there are parts I have to skip when I re-read (the mouse in the bathtub, the crazy maid)—but they’re so FUNNY and so SMART, and there are other parts I have to read several times and then read aloud to Paul (like the part with the Baby Jesus’s pet cow) and sometimes take to heart permanently.
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Well, or gift ideas for an 11-year-old girl, or for a 10- or 12-year old boy or girl, probably, but it is an 11-year-old boy I am shopping for, and the other title would be too long.

William is nearly 11, and one of the challenges in shopping for him is that he has many interests and they change fast: he’ll practice magic tricks obsessively and daily, and then abruptly move on to something new. Another challenge is that our town has a “One Man’s Trash” shed—a place where people can leave things they don’t want, and other people can take them for free. William has had remarkable success there and is continually coming home with the very things we were considering buying for his birthday or for Christmas: a pottery wheel! candles for his endless candle-burning interest! a pet triops! magic tricks! a terrarium kit! a chemistry set!

Well. We’ve explained to him that it’s possible he will be disappointed with his birthday gifts if he (1) suddenly switches gears or (2) comes home with the item from the Trash Shed. Here’s what we’re hoping he’ll still like/want when it’s his birthday:

Magnet Balls (photo from Amazon.com). Oh, man, do your kids have these? They’re also sold as Bucky Balls or Magnicube. We got him the particular set I’m linking to because he’d already saved his allowance and bought a set of them, and he’s saving for a second, matching set. He bought them about a month ago (after waiting a couple of years to be allowed to buy them: magnets are so dangerous if more than one is swallowed, so it wasn’t until Henry was four and a half that I said yes to the purchase), and I’m not sure they’ve been out of his hands since. They’re TINY: 216 of them takes up about the same amount of space as a golf ball.

Crazy Aaron’s Thinking Putty (photo from Amazon.com).
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Ha ha! Like I’d know!

It is very tricky to buy a Valentine’s Day gift for a guy. (Unless you don’t celebrate it, or think it’s a dumb holiday, in which case it’s not tricky at all.) I’m sure there ARE a FEW guys who enjoy getting flowers and chocolates and sentimental love notes. But in general I think a lot of us are stuck: it’s a holiday about sentimental/romantic love, and the established gifts are things that most guys are not keen on.

When we try to write them a hundred little love notes, or tell them what they mean to us, we’re giving them what WE’D want, not what THEY want—and that’s pretty much the opposite of romantic. (Many of us wouldn’t want the flowers or the chocolates or the hundred little love notes either, but that would be for another post.) I still remember the total failure of the Valentine’s Day symphony tickets I got for my high school boyfriend. “We get to dress up and go listen to romantic classical music with grown-ups!” He probably felt about that the way I would have felt if he’d gotten me a set of socket wrenches.

The goal, I think, is to find guy-romantic: not “Fine, let’s go make out in the car, then,” but something that actually shows some of the romantic spirit.
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When I was little, every Valentine’s Day morning there was a box of conversation hearts at our place at the table. I loved that, and so I wanted to find something to do for my own kids each year. I tried the conversation hearts, but the kids didn’t really like the taste. I tried making heart-shaped pancakes, but that ended in a temper tantrum. (Mine. It turns out I am more the sort of person who serves cereal in heart-shaped bowls.) I tried small boxes of chocolates (the kind made for kids, with a puppy or a panda or whatever on the heart-shaped front, and 4-6 pieces of chocolate inside), but the chocolates weren’t very yummy even for children.

One year I was out shopping before Valentine’s Day and the couple of kids with me went NUTS over the giant Hershey Kisses at the store. I went back later secretly and bought one for each kid, and they loved them, so that’s what I’ve done every year since—even now that they’re marked “#1 Teacher,” which, if you ask me, and I realize you haven’t, is a silly and limiting thing to do.

But perhaps your child responds to giant Hershey Kisses the way mine did to the boxes of assorted chocolates. Or perhaps your child has allergies, or gets too many candies from the classroom exchange already, or already gets the giant Hershey Kiss from the grandparents. In that case, I have some other, non-food ideas.

Melissa and Doug Heart Beads Set (photo from Amazon.com). (That one looks like it’s about to sell out; here’s another option, and another.)

Human Anatomy Heart (photo from Amazon.com). Ha ha, gross. But for the right child, this would be hilarious and awesome. (Here’s another option.)
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