Gift exchange
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So we’ve finally gotten all of our Christmas decorations packed away and managed to stuff the last of our used wrapping paper and gift boxes into the recycle bin. But there’s no time to relax, because no sooner has the holiday season ended than birthday season has arrived. My son turns 4 in two weeks, followed by our daughter’s first just two weeks after that.
My to-do list is still packed, but looks a little different: swap baking Christmas cookies for ordering birthday cake; buy gift bags adorned with construction trucks or flowers, instead of Santa or snowmen; and send out birthday invites instead of Christmas cards.
The one constant on both lists is buying gifts for the kids, which is always tricky business when they’ve already gotten loads of stuff over the holidays. We tend to be low-key on gift buying for the birthdays (and store extra gifts from grandparents to break out during the summer) but the question of what to buy is even more complicated this year. I’ve noticed a very interesting thing with the Christmas loot: My son is playing with my baby daughter’s Little People playhouse, while she is checking out his police car and Screaming Monkey. My husband and I worked hard this year to get our daughter some more “girly” things, just so she’d have something that wasn’t a hand-me-down from her brother in which construction trucks, trains or cars didn’t figure prominently. Guess we didn’t have to worry about that after all. And because he’s “big brother” he likes to play with everything that belongs to our daughter, maybe because it reinforces that he’s “in charge.” Maybe we’ll get them a joint birthday gift of a toy dump truck filled with stuffed animals and dolls, and then they’re both happy.
Is there a “battle of the sexes” when it comes to your playroom, or are a lot of your toys gender-free?
