Daddy's Fish BowlA Clear View Of A Father's Family Experiences

Ty & Tre's Birthday Cards for Mommy

As you all know yesterday was Fefe’s birthday so that meant cake, birthday cards, and presents needed to be purchased.  During my last few years as a father, I’ve struggled with this; not so much the cake part but the birthday cards and presents.  Every major gift giving holiday, I have to decide how to handle gifts & cards from the kids and usually I end up buying something I know she wants and slapping their name on it.  I’ll pick out a mommy card and have them write their name on it.  In Tre’s case, pretty much scribble all over that expensive card I just bought.

Recently, I’ve started to question this practice.  I mean really, what’s the point of buying a gift and putting Ty’s name on it only to hear him say “oooohhhh Mommy, what’s that? Can I have it?”  Clearly, that defeats the purpose of the gift being from him.  Of course she always loves the gift and I get major kudos for purchasing such an awesomely spectacular gift, but what about Ty & Tre?  Where are their kudos, and appreciation for showing Mommy how much she means?

While I haven’t ventured into the arena of letting the kids pick out their own gifts for Mommy (Fefe has done this and based on her experience, I’ve decided to hold off) but I have taken the birthday card market by storm and revamped my previous practices.  Hallmark made this easy for me at first, with their music cards and recordable cards; allowing the kids to be apart of the process was a simple.  But let’s face it, we’re in a recession right now and those $6-7 cards aren’t cutting it anymore.  Especially for our family, between all of our birthdays, Mother’s & Father’s day, anniversaries, etc we end up celebrating something almost every month.  Seriously, I’m not kidding, from Dec-Jun there is at least one holiday/event that we’re acknowledging each month!  So, being that we are in this recession, buying those expensive singing cards may not be the wisest economical choice.

So how do I involve the kids, other than letting them help me cook dinner, without paying an arm & a leg for it?  Yup, you guessed it, let them make their own birthday cards.  Personally, I think this has so much more meaning than those cards that sing and definitely than a card that I picked on my own.  I had to provide extensive assistance to Tre since his Picasso skills haven’t come in yet, but Ty on the other hand made his card all by himself and it was pretty good.  The one thing that puzzled me: he drew a tornado inside her card.  I literally have 10-15 pictures, paintings, drawings of tornados.  What’s up with this kid’s fascination with tornados?  I think Fefe watched the movie “Twister” one to many times while she was pregnant with him.  I’m honestly starting to believe he’s going to grow up to be a storm chaser! But Fefe enjoyed it and really appreciated the sentimental value of the card, so I guess tornados really can bring birthday happiness.

Maybe you can put a neat spin on it, but a tornado for your birthday only spells disaster in my book.  Can any of you rationalize the tornado card?  What are your thoughts and experiences on letting kids pick out gifts?

Ty's Tornado Card

Tre's Picasso Artwork