We did end-of-year teacher gifts our first few years of having schoolkids, but now I don’t typically do them. I’m more likely to put all the teacher-gift eggs into the December-gift basket.

But I do sometimes do something for end-of-year, especially if there’s something significant about the particular year/class. For example, last year one of my children’s teachers was retiring, and she’d taught another of my children as well. I had copies of “first day of school” pictures printed from both kids’ first days in her class, and enclosed them with a thank-you letter and a Target gift card and a card wishing her a happy retirement. (Forty years teaching first graders. Can you imagine? No, don’t try.)

Mid-year, I think classroom items can be a nice thing to donate—but at the end of the year, I suspect teachers just want to PACK IT UP. No more pencils, no more books, no more children’s dirty looks! I aim instead for things I think they might be able to enjoy over the summer. A gift card to Panera, for a time of year they might be able to go to lunch. A gift card to a book store, for a little recreational reading. A gift card to the over-priced-but-delicious ice cream store. A gift card to a place that sells iced coffees (photo from Starbucks.com), for keeping them cool in August when they’re reassembling their non-air-conditioned classrooms.
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I am breathing carefully and calmly through my nose as I think of playing board games with children: Monopoly, which goes on forever and makes children cry; CandyLand, which seems like it’s about to end and then someone gets sent back to the beginning.

I do have a few, a very select few, that I am willing to play. I look for a game that is fun for me as well as for the kids, and that doesn’t require me to hold way back in order to avoid trouncing my opponents.

Wits & Wagers Family (photo from Amazon.com). I prefer the grown-up version, which I first encountered at my brother and sister-in-law’s house, but the kid-friendly game is nearly as good. I am timid and suspicious of games, but this one won me over: it’s like Trivial Pursuit except you’re NOT SUPPOSED TO know the answers. The idea is that everyone will be guessing. The guesses are laid out in a row, and then everyone can bet on the likelihood that the guesses are correct; in this way, you can win points even if you didn’t know the population of Vatican City, or how many points an athlete scored in his best game. It ends up being a lot of fun and a lot of laughing, and as soon as I got home from that game night I ordered the family version to play with the kids.

Set (photo from Amazon.com). This game was recommended to us by one of the kids’ teachers, who had the kids make their own small decks to practice with. The point of the game is to find three cards that make up a “set”: the three cards can be different colors but the same shapes, or different shapes but the same colors, or all different colors/shapes. It took me a little while to catch on, but after that it was simple and addictive.
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Oh hey, another holiday is looming around the corner, BLEAH. I mean, oh, Valentine’s Day, my FAVORITE, I choo-choo-choose YOU!

(BLEAH.)

Please just tell me I’m not supposed to send in Valentines to my 3-year-old’s preschool. The teachers would warn us about this, right? Or is it just one of those Things that Good Parents Know About? ARRRGH.

While I’m stewing over the possibility of needing to make cards for a classroom of kids whose names my son cannot be trusted to accurately pronounce (one girl has been known in our household as “Prafarsha” forever, because that’s what he said her name was. FALSE), please enjoy some Valentine’s Day Gift Ideas for Guys, should you be shopping for the occasion.
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I am not exactly a professional photographer over here. In fact, I don’t know what half the buttons on my camera do, I can’t remember what an F-stop is, and the last time I used my tripod I caught my foot on it and sprawled flat on my living room floor.

But! I do love taking, editing, and sharing photos, and thanks to the tools I use, they don’t always suck. Unless they are of me (because my mouth is always hanging open or my eyes are pointing in two different directions or a fat roll has somehow snuck into the scene), or of my cat (because she always appears to be an amorphous black blob). I post most of my favorite images to Flickr, and one of these days I’m actually going to print some family photos and hang them in my house. REALLY I AM.

Anyway, my suggestions for turning out halfway decent photos without having a single clue about photography:

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You know what? I don’t like Valentine’s Day. It seems like there’s too much pressure to have some kind of uber-romantic, gooey day filled with expensive presents and chocolate, all for no particular reason. I mean, I’m not against holidays that advocate doing nice things for people for no particular reason (after all, as a godless heathen this pretty much describes Christmas for me), but there’s just something about the plethora of hearts and cards and ugly cheap jewelry that takes all of the fun out of it.

Since our household is still vibrating from the impact of having a newborn catapulted into it, I declared this year a collective Free Pass on Valentine’s Day participation. No presents, no flowers, no panicky last-minute shopping. However, as I was still languishing in bed yesterday morning feeding the baby, my husband sent our toddler racing into the bedroom to shout “HAPPY BALENTINE DAY MOMMY!” before thrusting a card in my hand. It featured some sweet words from my husband, as well as a few helpful scribbles from Riley.

Well MELT MY COLD BLACK HEART WHY DON’T YOU.

It got me thinking about a subject that’s perplexed me before: what do you do with your kid’s artistic creations, especially the ones you might actually want to hang onto? In honor of the more tolerable aspects of Valentine’s Day — specifically, the part where your children (or someone else on Behalf of the Children) do something cute for you — I’ve collected a few cool ideas for making keepsakes from such things:

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