What birthday present to you purchase for your child’s classmate?
At least once a month, one of my daughters come home with a birthday party invitation. Just the card gets them excited, it could be empty and still they would be over the moon about the upcoming party. The girls often don’t know until I read the invitation where the party is, but they know that they want to go. They have gone to ninja parties, ceramic paintings, building block adventures and even a bouncing house get together with pierogis. Yes, indeed you read that correctly, pierogis.
Regardless of the venue or the theme of the party, my children are bound to have a great time and rightfully so. Sometimes they have a bunch of friends and classmates there, while other times they might only know a person or two. The children get to see each other without their teacher and outside of an environment strictly related to learning. Besides, what is better when you are seven years old than eating all the cake and ice cream that you want.
What our children do not see is all the background work we as parents do to ensure that our children get to the party. First of all, there is the RSVP process which texting has made that much easier than calling someone and risking an awkward conversation with the other parent. Then the next challenge is figuring out the logistics of babysitting and sometimes even missing work. The final step before the party is the hardest, finding the perfect gift someone you have never met.
In the day of age where we beat the guessing game and just getting a gift card, it is not as exciting as ripping open wrapping paper. Asking my daughters for what the birthday child likes play with always has the same exact answer, toys. Very insightful, naturally.
The first couple of years that my daughters were in elementary school, I always purchased the same terrarium toy with glowing rocks. Messy, crafty and gender neutral. However, as they would occasionally get invited to the same child’s party two years in a row, that gift was no longer perfect although the age range implied otherwise. Then we moved on to out of this world gift over painting planet magnets made rocks. Educational, still messy and of course just right within the appropriate age range. It is only a matter of time until that is also no longer the go to.
As the children go, the perfect universal gift changes. The secret is that if you child likes it, there is a chance their friend might like it too!
