Sigh.

I write these older-kid gift posts not because I feel like they contain Such Incredibly Awesome Ideas, but rather because there are SO FEW ideas of ANY CALIBER, it seems like we should put ALL the ideas OUT THERE. If I tell you what my 12-year-old boy is getting for his birthday, and if you tell me what your 12-year-old boy is getting for his birthday, then between us we have TWO ideas!

Spherification kit (photo from Amazon.com). We got this idea from Catherine Newman’s post. The gist, I gather, is that you add this stuff to liquid, and it turns the liquid into spheres. This seemed like the perfect present for a boy who spent one million hours with the water marbles he got for Christmas.

Magic Books and Paper Toys: Flip Books, E-Z Pop-ups, & Other Paper Playthings (photo from Amazon.com). We have a 12-year-old of the crafty/projects variety, and this looked like his sort of thing.
Read the rest of this entry

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.
Read the rest of this entry

Paul has started a new annual tradition of taking the two older kids on a road trip each summer. Here are some of the supplies I bought for them this year, when they were ages 11 and 13:

The Hunger Games trilogy (photo from Amazon.com). Both kids read the first book, but we’ve spent the rest of the summer on the library waiting list for the second one. This was the perfect moment to finally give in and buy the set. And there was no fighting over it, because one kid wanted to re-read the first book before reading the second one, and the other kid didn’t.

Brain Quest for the Car (photo from Amazon.com). We’ve loved these Brain Quest cards for littler kids; I hadn’t realized they had sets for older kids. I first considered the set for 7th graders (one child is going into 6th, the other into 8th), but this car-trip set seemed more fun. I worried it might be too young for them (it’s marked ages 7-12), and probably would have gotten the America set (ages 9 and up) if it hadn’t had a predicted shipping delay.
Read the rest of this entry

I’ve been shopping for toys for my niece and nephew, and I accidentally got sucked down a Gorgeous Toys wormhole. My kids are all out of the baby/toddler-toy stage, and a LOT of their toys are UGLY and PLASTICKY. Feast your eyes on THESE riches instead:

Small Rainbow Stacker (photo from Amazon.com)

Plan Toys Balancing Cactus (photo from Amazon.com). I saw this in Ann Wyse’s gift post and SWOONED.
Read the rest of this entry

Oh, man. William has been invited to a birthday party this weekend. Furthermore, he got the invitation yesterday, which means there is not much time to think. And William is the sort of child who, if you ask him what his BEST FRIEND SINCE FIRST GRADE’s favorite color is, will say “……Humm. Maybe….blue?” And if you say, “Well, what does she like to do? Does she have any hobbies?,” will say “…..Humm. Uh….” So on the topic of this weekend’s birthday child, a classmate he has known only since school started this year, I feel very lucky that he happened to know whether the child was a boy or a girl.

And eleven is a tricky age to buy for. I don’t even know what to get my OWN children in that age range. Well, there is nothing for it but to dig up some candidates, which is something I had to do before Christmas anyway.

Crafting With Cat Hair (photo from Amazon.com). I realize this is odd. I realize this is the sort of item that may need some further explanation, or perhaps would have been better suited to the unusual miscellany list from last week.
Read the rest of this entry

This was Elizabeth’s most successful tonsillectomy-recovery present:

Ravensburger Hello Kitty Hatbox Tin puzzle (photo from Amazon.com). She saw it when we were looking for something else, and she instantly wanted it. I balked at the price: why was it $14, when there are 100-piece Hello Kitty puzzles at Target for $3.99? I assumed the difference was in the tin (instead of a cheap cardboard box), and I didn’t want to spend so much money when I didn’t even know that she would LIKE to put together a puzzle.

So her loving aunt and uncle bought it for her, and I bought her a $4 one. And OH I SEE. No, it’s not the just the tin, it’s that the puzzle inside the tin is WAY better quality than the $4 one. Much larger overall size, and the pieces are thicker, glossier, sturdier, and fit together better. Furthermore, Elizabeth must have put it together twenty times that first week, and keeps bringing it out now to put it together again. And to my surprise, _I_ like doing the puzzle WITH her: it’s one of the few parent-child play activities I’ve found where I’m not suffering. When it started getting too easy for me, I did new things: only doing the pieces with no picture on them; only doing the trickiest parts and not peeking at the box while working on them; working on the puzzle while the picture was upside-down (as in, I saw the kitty face upside down, not as in the puzzle was face-down on the table); etc.

Where was I? Oh, yes: the surprising success of the puzzle. So now I’m looking for more puzzles in tins (100-piece is pretty much exactly her ability level), and wondering if “being in a tin” consistently means good things about the quality of the puzzle inside, or if it’s kind of hit-and-miss. At the very least, a tin means not having to try to figure out how to slice one of those cardboard ones open without destroying the box.

Read the rest of this entry

William, Robert, and Elizabeth have all been invited to a birthday party this weekend, so I need to come up with three presents for a 10-year-old girl. I could use a hand, if you have a minute—and then we’ll have this later as a reference for the next time we need it!

She likes cats, and she likes anything cute or fuzzy. She likes Phineas & Ferb, and SpongeBob Squarepants. She likes crafts. She plays soccer. She’s William’s age and grade and is mostly William’s friend, but she plays with everyone when she’s here.

Normally I aim for about $10 for a party gift (in this case, from each of the three children), but I’d be willing to go a little higher.

First candidate: Aurora Plush Fluffee Fluffy Tails (photo from Amazon.com), about $9.00. Most households already have more stuffed animals than they can handle—and yet, the sight of this cat reduced our household to “OHHHHhhhhhhhhhh!!!”s of cuteness.
Read the rest of this entry

My 6-year-old daughter will soon be having a tonsillectomy. Even though this is a totally routine outpatient procedure, I am fretting. And one way I deal with anxiety is by preparing—or perhaps more accurately, over-preparing. I’d like to buy her a number of fun things to entertain her during the two weeks the doctor suggests we plan for her to be in a nest on the couch, and I’ve been distracting myself with the decisions.

Our Target has some of the Littlest Pet Shop Petriplets sets on clearance, so I bought Elizabeth the kitties one (photo from Amazon.com) which has three cats and a little triple cat-perch, and the bunnies one which has three bunnies and a little triple carrier. These don’t seem to me to have high play-value, but they’re cute and she likes cute, and they can be played with from a couch nest.

Read the rest of this entry

When Paul and I got married, I had to write all the thank-you notes for our wedding gifts. Not only had he not been trained to write them, he hadn’t been trained WHY to write them. Purely aside from WANTING to tell the person who sent the gift how much you appreciated their kindness and generosity, the thank you note is a practical acknowledgment: it says “Yes, the gift successfully traveled from you to me.”

(photo of Dinosaur silhouette card from Simplicity Papers on Etsy)

In the case of children’s parties, it communicates to the parents who were not there that the gift went as planned: it wasn’t lost under the table, it was opened with knowledge of who it was from, etc. And it is such an excellent teaching opportunity for one’s own child on a subject it’s hard to remember to lecture about and practice: kindness should be appreciated, and the appreciation should be communicated, and here is the practical information about what to put between “Dear ____” and “Love, _____”. Also, you may not play with the present until you’ve written the note, so get on it.
Read the rest of this entry

We have the kids choose presents for the other parent at birthdays and Christmas, because it’s such good practice in gift-selection techniques: “What would the other person like? Not what would YOU like, but what would THEY like? No, Daddy doesn’t like sour gummy worms, that’s YOU who likes sour gummy worms”—and so on.

Wrapping the gifts is a pain. I am not the “Patient Teacher” personality type, I’m the “Here, I Can Do That Faster and Better and Easier Myself” personality type. I try to overcome this because I know it’s important, but a person can only stretch so far. So Paul came up with what I think is the best idea ever for letting children do their own gift-wrapping without the parent losing his or her mind.
Read the rest of this entry