Category Archives: gift ideas

MP3 Player Questions From Someone Who Doesn’t Know Anything About It

Do you want to help me choose an MP3 player for Rob for Christmas? Normally I make my dad help me with all such decisions, but he’s an Apple man through and through and iPods are more than I want to spend. Normally we aim for $40 per child, but Rob is getting very difficult to buy for as he gets older, and the other kids won’t have any idea what an MP3 player costs, so we’re willing to go higher. But not, like, $100…I hope. I guess what I have in mind is…$50-75?

So my first question is: Does a decent MP3 player exist in that price range? And by “decent” I mean “won’t break before a 12-year-old breaks or loses it”?

And my second question is: If so, can it use iTunes MP3s? Because that’s where I have my MP3s, but iTunes is Apple, so…does that work if the MP3 player is not Apple?

And my third question is: Will it let the user find and select an individual song to play? Because that feature would not be something I’D care about, but it’s important to Rob.

KTHANX. Because like everyone else I have my own set of strengths, but “choosing electronic equipment” is not even in the same universe as those strengths.

********

New gift ideas post at Milk and Cookies: Gift ideas for an elderly person you don’t know very well.

Reader Question: Group Teacher Gifts

57 Replies

Laura writes:

I turn to you in the hopes that you will be able to give me your opinion on this gift giving question. Will you please, if you are inclined, let me know what you think of this pitch from the kindergarten room parents at my daughter’s school?

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One of the standard practices at Blank Elementary is to collect money from parents to pay for gifts for Ms Smith during Teacher Appreciation week, around the holidays, and at the end of the school year. Parents find that doing a group collection is an efficient way to handle gifts. The Room Parents put together an budget for how the money will be spent during the year and determined that $35 per child is the right amount. As each event comes up, we’ll ask for ideas and and opinions so the gift-giving will be a group decision. If you’d prefer not to take part, that’s perfectly fine, but please let us know so we can plan accordingly.
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I have never heard of such a thing, but I am new to Massachusetts and perhaps they really -do- have a “standard practice” like this. However, this is Ms. Smith’s first year at the school, and so I am skeptical (in addition to being slightly appalled).

Oh, I’ll tell you what I think all right: ACK. That is what I think: ACK. My coloring is HIGH PINK right now. I don’t like the tone of it; I don’t like the wording of it; and I think $35 per child is a ridiculous amount. If there are ten students, that’s THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS for teacher gifts in a single year—and in my kids’ kindergarten classes there have been more like fifteen (FIVE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIVE DOLLARS) or twenty (SEVEN HUNDRED DOLLARS).

Furthermore, “group decisions” on gifts tend to SUCK. If my previous experience with such things is a guide, what will happen is that the room parents will come up with several ideas nobody likes (including the teacher), and no one will be up to arguing about it, and so the room parents will just make all the decisions and everyone will feel dismayed at the way their money is being wasted.

I would absolutely “prefer not to take part.” I would say, “No, thanks, we’d prefer to do our own shopping for gifts!” in a cheery voice. I would also talk with other parents if I knew them: I’ve found that with things like this, sometimes everyone thinks everyone else is okay with it and they don’t want to be the only one “preferring not to take part.” I don’t mean starting a bitchfest behind the room parents’ backs—just a casual, “Did you get the thing about $35 per kid? I’m not doing it, are you?” Some parents probably WOULD find it easier (and even a relief) to just write a check for the whole year, but a lot of parents are going to be thinking what we’re thinking, which is “WHUH???”

If the suggestion were, “Look, we all know the teacher would rather have a $100 Target gift card than twenty $5 ornaments and boxes of chocolate, so let’s pool our dough,” I would be IN—and also HAPPY, because this seems sensible. But that’s not what this is. This is the room parents asking for, say, six hundred dollars of other people’s money, which they will then have control over—and in the process removing the actual feelings of generosity and appreciation from the gift-giving occasions. DO NOT LIKE.

Gifts for a Sick Friend

22 Replies

My cousin Lee writes:

I have a good friend from college who has had a bone cancer disease and it is getting the best of her now. her entire face from the nose down had to be basically taken apart to get the cancer out of the jaw bone.

She only drinks liquids now…and can’t smell very well.

So here’s my question for you and possibly for your blog readers if you want to pose it….

I want to send her a care package. Smelly things are out….food is out….

What could I assemble that would bring her joy and happiness?

She loves flowers…but flowers die quickly….I want some things to cheer her up.

and I need help figuring this out.
I’m stumped.

Are you on it for me?
:o)

Aw, GEEZ, Lee, this is really SAD! And a little gross BUT MOSTLY SAD.

Flowering plants are good, if you think she’d be up to caring for them. When Henry was born, my parents brought me a gorgeous shiny splendid geranium for my room. Admire:

Also admire little Henry on the bed.
How eensy is he? VERY eensy.
In fact, indulge me for a minute. Look at THIS:

I took this from behind my own head, and it is SO evocative for me. The familiar fabrics of the hospital! The way the bendy, birdlike newborn feels all curled up and rumpled and falling out of his clothes, and the way his entire butt plus both feet fit into one hand. That “Oh my god, you’re HERE!!” feeling. The soft, soft newborn hair, and the way it feels during snuffling.

…Where were we? OH YES. Gifts for a friend. So, a big shiny geranium. Or, our supermarket has some really nice Gerbera daisies. I bought one on impulse and finally had to re-pot it because it’s getting so big. Cheery, and they seem to do well indoors, or at least mine does. Or one of those cute little tea-rose plants!

Or a small framed picture of flowers might be nice. I’ve framed greeting cards before, and it doesn’t cost much (especially if you find a frame on clearance, and I saw some nice colorful ones on clearance at Target the other day).

Or stationery? I always like pretty stationery.

A paperback, maybe, or a whole bunch of them if your library does cheap book sales like mine does. And those can go book-rate which is pretty cheap, if you send them by themselves.

Oh, a journal!

Or a “learn to” book: I had a lot of fun doing Drawing for the Artistically Undiscovered. It comes with the pencils, and you draw in the book itself, so it’s like a drawing kit.

(image from Amazon.com)

Which reminds me of a journal by Sark I FLIPPED over when I was in high school. I’m pretty sure it was this one. I haven’t seen it in years so I don’t know if it would appeal to adults as well.

(image from Amazon.com)

Music! A tape of you playing songs she likes?

Okay, next idea. There are sites that offer support to people with illnesses, and what they do is they assign a “mail sender” to each person, or else they post mailing info for all the people and anyone can send them mail. The idea is that getting regular little surprises in the mail (a letter, a postcard, a greeting card, a little gift like soap or a box of tea or stickers, a medium gift like a mug or a hat or stationery or a $5 gift card) is good for morale. I can’t remember any of the names of these sites (it seems like all of them involve the word “angel”) (oh, here’s the one I read about in People awhile back, and here’s one for children), but it’s the sort of thing you could do for her yourself: a steady stream of small things in the mail might have more impact (on your postage budget, too, unfortunately) than one big package.

Furthermore, you may be able to recruit others to work on this with you. I can’t even tell you how much I love buying gifts and mailing them, so I’d LOVE to help—and maybe other bloggers/readers or others of your friends or her friends/relatives would want to help too.

Gift Ideas: Stocking Stuffers

34 Replies

Brooke writes:

O! Swistle! I have a passel of kids, and I am totally strapped for stocking-stuffer ideas. The kids are Boy, 12, and Girls, 10 (steps, not twins) and I am looking for non-lame small things to give to them. These are the Kids Who Have Everything, so it’s kind of tough to come up with things that won’t get kicked under the bed and forgotten by Epiphany. Not having my own blog, I humbly request the help of you and your internets.

My stocking stuffer strategy is to buy stocking stuff all year long. I’m always seeing cheap little toys on 75% off, so I buy them when I see them and put them in the closet. The best finds come from the party supply section, where I’ll often find cheap little toys in 75%-off 6-packs.

As it gets closer to the holiday, I start on food. I sometimes find individual snack packs marked down: after Halloween I got a 20-pack of chips at 50% off, and last month I found Raisinets, Combos, Twizzlers, and gummy bears all in individual packs at 50-75% off. I don’t, like, QUEST for such things, but if I see them while shopping I think, “Oh! Maybe for stockings?”

But! I go for flash and short-term and cheap thrills in the stockings, and also my kids are mostly younger than yours, and also we are a little late for all year long at this point. So let’s see if we can come up with some workable ideas. (Here’s last year’s post on stockings, which was more focused on little-kid stuff but the comments section might be useful.)

Normally I would think of DVDs and CDs as gifts rather than stocking stuffers, but sometimes you can find them pretty cheap, and they do make more lasting items than the 6-packs of party trinkets. Is there any TV show they all like? You could get a season and put one disc in each stocking. Do they like similar music and are they good at sharing? Then one CD each is almost like three CDs each.

The shipping on this set of wire puzzles makes me clench my teeth, but if you could find something similar locally you could split the pack up among the stockings.

My kids always want the interesting hand soaps (like the one that puts “squid ink” on your hand), and I’m always saying no. They also want certain fruit scented shampoos I think smell icky, and I’m always getting the ones I find more tolerable. Both items make good stocking stuffers.

Are there snacks/treats they want that you won’t get for reasons such as price or nutrition? Perfect for stockings.

A pair of gloves is practical and also kind of fun if they’re in fun colors or patterns. Scarfs and hats, same thing. The Children’s Place has nice gloves/scarfs/hats for $5 each. I mean, times 3 that adds up, but if they need them anyway it can come out of the clothing budget rather than the holiday budget.

Oh, and cute socks! Well, maybe the boy will not appreciate those. But the girls might.

Rubik’s Cubes.

One Christmas ornament each. This is a fun holiday tradition anyway. This year I got my kids initial ornaments at Target: there are silver cursive ones for about $7 each, which I got them a few years ago, but this year I got them some brightly colored plastic ones that were $4 each. I write the year on the ornaments with a permanent marker.

Paperback book. If they all like the same series, you can buy a set and split it up.

At a local craft store I found a TON of good stocking stuff: little $1 kits that make a Christmas ornament, clearance beads, fun craft supplies.

My older two have been dying for this Fifteen puzzle but there was no way I wanted to spend $10 on it, even though it IS super retro cute. But when I was looking for it for this post I found it was marked down to $5 and I bought two of them instantly.

New toothbrush. Not exciting, but fills the stocking and is useful.

More ideas for Brooke?

Gift Ideas: DVD Gifts for Kids

25 Replies

I think DVDs make EXCELLENT gifts for children. It is hard to put a price on something that keeps the children occupied the next day when the grown-ups are tired and headachy and have exchanged The Holiday Spirit for the Who Is Going To Clean All This UP Spirit.

Incidentally, I’m glad it worked out for the Grinch, but wouldn’t you think the Whos would be a LITTLE pissed, both when they woke up to a stolen Christmas and again when they had to sort out the colossal tangled mess of possessions the Grinch brought back?

(image from Amazon.com)

My TOP FAVORITE right now is Here Comes Science by They Might Be Giants. (The one I linked to is a 2-pack with the DVD and also the CD.) I have “I am a Paleontologist” going through my head right now; the kids’ favorites are “Electric Car” and “What is a Shooting Star?” There’s an updated version of the song that used to go “The sun is a mass of incandescent gas” (it now goes “The sun is a miasma of incandescent plasma”), and the planet song includes Pluto’s new non-planet status. I realize these concepts sound kind of ADVANCED for little kids, but the fun songs and accompanying cartoons make it work even for 2-year-old Henry (though it’s William who told his third-grade teacher that the list “solid, liquid, and gas” was missing “plasma”). It’s pleasant to have on in the background (assuming you like TMBG); the songs are catchy and also sneakily educational. They’re like a modern Schoolhouse Rock. Speaking of which…

(image from Amazon.com)

Schoolhouse Rock. Nostalgic for those of you who got to watch Saturday morning cartoons as a child, still great for those of us who didn’t (guess which one I was, NOT THAT I’M BITTER). Songs about the parts of speech, functions of government, and math manage somehow not to be like school—and yet I can now sing the preamble to the Constitution, and just TRY to tell me that’s not a useful skill.

(image from Amazon.com)

Charlie and Lola. I bought the “How Many Minutes Until Christmas?” one for the kids this year because it was on a good deal, and only the first episode on the disc is holiday. What I wish I’d done is let them watch the Christmas one before Christmas and saved the others until after. Well, there are lots of other Charlie & Lola DVDs that don’t have any holiday on them. (Incidentally, after I bought it I got an email from Amazon saying I could have 12 issues of US Weekly for $1, and UM YES THANK YOU.)

(image from Amazon.com)

One of the things I like best about Wall-E is that there is not much talking in it. One of the other things I like is that I seem to be able to watch it again and again, from any point in the movie, without getting sick of it.

(image from Amazon.com)

We love Wubbzy. I wish there was a CD, because I would totally listen to it in the car, even if the kids weren’t with me. The non-music part is fine, if predictable and a little cheezy in the manner of almost all children’s shows (cooperation is best! be yourself! lying is bad! if you try, you can do anything!), and it’s distracting that Wubbzy is voiced by the same person who voices Emily Elizabeth in the Clifford TV show, but we really. like. Wubbzy around here.

(image from Amazon.com)

Blue’s Clues: Classic Clues is for those of us who ACCEPT Joe but knew STEVE first. I don’t know how children can watch and rewatch a detective show that always turns out the same, but they can and they do.

(image from Amazon.com)

I am pretty sure Paul and I like Peep and the Big Wide World even better than the kids do: when it’s on, we’re both, like, “SHHHHHHH!!”

(image from Amazon.com)

I don’t know how to explain the appeal of Maisy, a show in which all the characters except the patronizing, over-interested, easily-amused narrator talk as inarticulately as the adults in a Charlie Brown special. The animals coo and gurgle and chuckle and the narrator says, “Oh, you want to play in your POOL? Ha ha! Great idea, Maisy!” But every single one of my five kids was SMITTEN with the show in their toddler years (we had a lot of the Maisy books—maybe that was why they liked the show so much), and I didn’t find it too bad to have on in the background.

Gift Ideas: Preschool, Early Elementary School (Originally: 4-Year-Old Boy)

28 Replies

Edward is the most difficult child on my list this year. He’s 4-and-a-half, and he likes computers and video games. That’s pretty much it: computers and video games. We have a lot of computer aptitude in the family tree so we don’t mind this much (THE CHILD, HE IS ONE OF US), but we would like to find SOME things he likes IN ADDITION TO computers and video games. But what? My computery brother liked Capsela and Erector sets, but Edward is too little for that and also hasn’t shown much interest in building sets.

Well, I’m going through Amazon and gathering ideas.

(image from Amazon.com)

LeapFrog Scribble and Write. He hasn’t shown much interest in writing, so I’m not sure. But on the other hand, he likes almost anything electronic with buttons. And the nice thing about a bigger family is that if one kid doesn’t like something, there are other kids who might: either Elizabeth or Henry might want to play with it.

(image from Amazon.com)

Melissa & Doug Geometric Stacker. This may be too young for him. On the other hand, I can picture him playing with it. And notice the tower on the left is more complicated than the other two.

(image from Amazon.com)

LeapFrog Leapster Mr. Pencil’s Learn to Draw and Write. Again, he hasn’t shown much interest in writing, or in drawing either. But he might if they were in a video game.

(image from Amazon.com)

ThinkFun Chocolate Fix. He likes these ThinkFun games, but my mom already has several at her house for him to play with.

(image from Amazon.com)

LeapFrog Didj Sonic the Hedgehog. In case we decide not to bother trying to get him to enjoy things other than video games.

(image from Rachael Rossman)

Custom name painting. Rachael Rossman made me a Swistle painting, and I like it so much I was fantasizing about having one made for each of the kids. I asked Edward if he thought he’d want one for himself (with his real name, if I can remember it after calling him Edward for so long), on a computer and video game theme. He surprised me by saying YES with enthusiasm, so now this is a frontrunner possibility—assuming I decide about his gift in time for it to be done before Christmas. One thing I like about this idea is that it’s not another toy in the house.

Gift Ideas: Toddler, Preschooler, Early Elementary School (Originally 2-Year-Old Boy)

33 Replies

This year the three younger kids are all getting pajamas as one of their Christmas presents. They need pajamas anyway, but I got them “special” ones (Mario for Edward, kitty for Elizabeth, dinosaur for Henry) so they’ll find it thrilling and I also found it fun to buy them fancy jammies. Here are the dinosaur pajamas I got for Henry:

OMG, do you LOVE them? Baby Gap! 50% off! Still $14, even so.

Now I’m turning my attention to toys. Tonight I’m shopping for Henry, age 2-and-a-half. Join me, won’t you? *trill of music* *door opens invitingly before you*

(All photos yoinked from Amazon.com, which is where I was doing my shopping.)

Crayola Beginnings Color Me a Song. I don’t know if he’d like this or not. He does like to color. He does like music. This thing apparently plays music based on how fast the child scribbles. I’m not sure I want to encourage him to, like, scribble faster per se. But maybe it would be a ton of fun. Or maybe it would be super annoying. I can’t tell. About $20.

LeapFrog Tag Junior. We have a regular Tag, and Henry likes it but has a little trouble managing it. This looks much easier to manage, and I love hunting down the books (periodically I find them at 75% off at Target, and they also make good gift idea things). But I am soooooo lazy, and what happens is I buy a new Tag book and then I mean to upload it to the Tag thingie but I keep putting it off until the children are no longer interested in the subject the book is based on. Maybe I would reform if I had a toddler reminding me every few seconds. About $30.

Fisher-Price Kid-Tough Digital Camera. I let the four oldest kids use my actual digital camera: it’s not a super-fancy/expensive one, and they’re all careful to use the wrist strap, and that way I can upload their photos whenever I upload mine. BUT. Henry. Is not as good at being careful. It is not his fault he’s only two. But he sees the other kids using my camera and he really! wants! to use! the camera! Sometimes I let him, but sometimes I’ve also lost my mind, and sometimes I get fingerprints all over the lens, and sometimes he drops it and now you have to press really hard on the button to make it take a photo. And so sometimes I find this kind of camera more appealing, and my camera was not expensive but this one is less expensive by several multiples. We have the Fisher-Price Kid-Tough portable DVD player (it was “as-is” at Target for $20 and I haven’t found a single thing wrong with it) and it has been dropped FROM THE TOP BUNK and is still working fine, so I’d be ready to put down money for the camera if I knew he’d use it and not still pine to use mine. About $45.

Oh! The Melissa and Doug Slice and Bake Cookie Set! My mom has this at her house, and all three littles LOVVVVVE it. They cut cookie dough slices, bake them on a cookie sheet, then put frosting on them. I totally recommend this for the age 2-5 range, and longer if you have a child who particularly likes to pretend-bake. About $14.

Green Toys Tea Set. Speaking of my mom’s house, she also has a tea set Henry loves to play with. She lets him use real water in it. He is not very tidy. I’m not getting him a tea set. $17ish.

LeapFrog Fridge Phonics. We already have this, but if you’re looking for something for a toddler/preschooler this would be GREAT. The unit and the letters go on the fridge, and if you put a letter into the unit it sings a little song about the letter. I SWEAR this (plus the tied-in DVD) is what taught the twins their letters and letter sounds, and the song manages not to annoy me (the frogs in the video are another story). About $15 (and about $10 for the video; they’d make a nice set).

Fisher Price Smart Fit. This looks kind of like the Wii Fit? But for little kids? Henry’s still too young for it but the twins might like it and Henry could grow into it. About $40.

Fisher-Price Spike Jr. Henry loves this whenever I let him play with it while we’re shopping at Target, but I’m not sure it has enough play value for the price. It makes a yawning kind of roar (not overly scary), then stomps around, then chuckles like “Ha ha, I would totally not eat you in one quick snap if I were real.” About $40.

Mr. Potato Head Silly Suitcase. He has this already and loves it. About $17.

Alex Tub Tunes Water Flutes. I think he’d like these: he likes music, he likes baths. And I think the older kids would like it, too. About $12.

This, by the way, is the amusing present he’s getting from my parents: the Fisher-Price Little Mommy Gotta Go doll. He flipped out over it in the store and so my mom bought it—which is, I assume, why store managers don’t much mind if kids play with the toys in the store. This doll has SIXTY different things she says, many of them related to peeing and using the potty.

Shopping Post: First of Many; Gift Ideas for a 9-Month-Old Niece

24 Replies

This evening I’m looking through the “Birth to 24 Months” of Amazon.com’s toy section, looking for something for my 9-month-old niece. I’m not finding many Awesome! Deals! but I’m finding some good toys so I thought I’d do a Shopping Post while I was at it. All photos are yoinked from Amazon. The prices are what they are as I click (rounded, because do any of us care if it’s $10 or if it’s $10.28?)—Amazon is pissing me off a little by changing prices every 10 minutes so WHO KNOWS what the prices are by the time YOU click.

Um, perfect much? This is the best thing I found. It is the Busy Zoo Activity Center, and it’s $57 down from $100, and I could have it shipped free which I would not expect for something nearly SEVENTEEN POUNDS. But I already bought part of Niestle’s present and was looking for something more in the $10-$20 range, and also this is a big thing to buy for someone else’s household. I’d get this for my own kid, though, if I had a kid the right age. This would be perfect for a tummy-time-aged baby, perfect for a sitting baby, perfect for a pulling-to-standing baby. And I’m always looking for toys with lots to do but NO PIECES TO SCATTER AND LOSE.

I’ve mentioned the Melissa and Doug Shape-Sorting Clock before. I like it because it’s fun for kids who like clocks AND kids who like puzzles AND kids who like numbers. This is a nice price, too: $10 down from $15. This is best for the kind of household where someone finds all the pieces before putting a toy away, rather than the kind of household where eventually the toy has two pieces in place and the others are scattered across four or five rooms. Ahem.

The Melissa and Doug Picnic Basket ($15 down from $20) is a strong contender. Jonniker has a 9-month-old daughter and mentioned that this was on Samantha’s wish list, reminding me that the 9-month-old stage is big on putting things in and dumping things out, with an emphasis on dumping things out and perhaps also an emphasis on fussing until someone ELSE puts them back in.

Jonniker and I are also both considering the Manhattan Toy Put and Peek Birdhouse for the 9-month-olds we know. This toy is not on any kind of sale at all as of posting (still $22), but OMG TEH BIRDIES.

My mom has the LeapFrog Fridge Farm and we have the similar LeapFrog Wash & Go, and they’re both GREAT. Too old for my niece, I think, but a lot of fun for toddlers. If you put the animals/vehicles together correctly it sings one song, and if you put them together crazy it sings a silly song. They’re called “Fridge” because they have strong magnets to attach both the unit and the pieces to the refrigerator, which is nice if you’re trying to get TWO SECONDS to pour a stiff drink get dinner ready.

The Radio Flyer Wagon! $30 down from $50 AND free shipping!

The Skwish doesn’t look like much for $12, but it was one of the most enduring and played-with baby toys we owned. Durable, too: made it through five babies without looking worse for wear. It’s a teether! It’s a rattle! It’s a hypnotizing toy for Mommy to play with!

The Winkel is a similar choice: why oh why is it TWELVE DOLLARS? It seems like it should be about FIVE! And yet it is worth EVERY DOLLAR, and I saved mine after the last kid outgrew it because otherwise I’d end up spending ANOTHER twelve dollars if I ever had another baby. It was the first toy my firstborn reached for, and they all teethed vigorously on it. Silly name and not cheap, but worth it.

Speaking of silly names, Melissa and Doug’s, um, Jumbo Knob Puzzles. There are a whole bunch of these (pets, barnyard, vehicles, etc.–just search for Melissa and Doug and, um, jumbo knob) marked from $15 down to $9. Although, now that I’m looking more closely, I see that other sellers have the starting price at $9-10, so that $15 starting price may be a teeny bit overstated.

These Nest and Stack buckets look terrific: a shape sorting toy AND a nesting/stacking toy. Plus, I’ll bet the larger buckets would make good barf buckets later on! A bit small perhaps. Well, let’s not turn our minds to it.

Gift Ideas: Paul’s Presents

11 Replies

It’s pretty much too late for this post, since here we are at December 21st already. But I’m posting it anyway, because some of you might have Amazon.com’s Prime (2-day) shipping, and if you have never had Prime, you can get a free one-month trial, and gosh this would be a good time for that. It gives you free 2-day shipping on anything you order, whether you’re shipping it to your own address or to a gift address.

And also, I suppose you could still get to a store. Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha haha!

So, guys are really hard to buy for. I’ll show you what I got for Paul, and maybe the guys on your list would like some of the same things.

(image from Amazon.com)

The next volume in the Hikaru No Go graphic novel series. This is a series for teenagers, so if you have any teenagers to buy for I recommend it for them, too. I buy the books in groups of four, because they qualify for the “4-for-3” deal—so instead of costing $8 each, they’re $6 each.

(image from Amazon.com)

Perspective for Comic Book Artists is a book Paul got out of the library and kept talking and Talking and TALKING about how awesome it was. He and the kids were trying it out, and they immediately started producing some really awesome looking 3D drawings. In fact, this would be another great gift idea for a teenager, and why does my husband like so many teenagery things?

(image from Amazon.com)

How Round is Your Circle?: Where Engineering and Mathematics Meet is not a book I would have just GUESSED he wanted. He had to do some pretty serious hinting involving a URL.

(image from Amazon.com)

Paul’s been complaining about not being able to find a small notebook that has GRAPH paper in it. Voila: the Moleskine squared notebook.

(image from Amazon.com)

Recipes for Disaster: An Anarchist’s Cookbook is another one I wouldn’t have guessed he wanted, but he said he thought it looked like a fun read. I felt weird ordering it, like my file was being flagged by some government program just for purchasing such a book.

(image from Amazon.com)

A Man, A Can, A Plan is an easy cookbook marketed to men. We got the second book in the series as part of a package I won from The New Girl, and Paul REALLY liked it and wanted to make a bunch of stuff from it, so I ordered him the first book on the sly.

(image from Amazon.com)

Paul is always bitching about how his measuring tape doesn’t have METRIC on it, and considering we live in a country that uses VERY LITTLE METRIC, I think he just sounds like an ass going around saying things in centimeters. But whatever, I bought him a metric measuring tape because I love him or whatever.

(image from Amazon.com)

He looked at my Victoriana calendar and said wistfully that he wished there was a MATH calendar. Well, there is: I got him the The Mathematics Calendar 2009, and may they be very happy together.

(image from Amazon.com)

Paul has a subscription to Make Magazine, but his subscription started around issue #10 so I’ve been buying him individual copies of the backissues he missed. Amazon.com has them for about $10 each, which is about what you pay per issue if you subscribe, too.

(image from Amazon.com)

Paul LOVES Altoid Sours, and they used to be available at Target in 2-packs, but now our Targets only sell the mango flavor, and what Paul likes is the tangerine and the lemon. So I found them in a bulk pack on Amazon: 16 tins for around $25, which compares acceptably to the 2 tins for $3 price I used to buy them for. It comes in two boxes of 8 tins each, so I give him one 8-pack for Christmas and the other for his birthday.

(image from Amazon.com)

Finally, here’s something I bought SUPPOSEDLY for Rob, but I bought it because Paul was slavering all over it and saying how AWESOME it would be…”for Rob.” So “for Rob,” then, we bought the Rubik’s 5×5 ($9 down from $30!) and also a copy of the book Speedsolving the Cube, which is the kind of book that allows your serious geek to “impress” people by solving Rubik’s cubes rapidly with a formula.

Gift Ideas: Teachers

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Teachers. Gifts. Every year I fret. Evidence of past fretting:

Teacher Gifts (Dec 2007)
Teacher Gifts (May 2008)
Teacher Appreciation Week (May 2008)
Teacher Gifts, Part One: Time to Worry! (May 2008)
Teacher Gifts, Part Two: The Worrying Intensifies! (May 2008)

Well, okay, apparently I mostly worried in May 2008.

Myself, I have read one too many article/comment saying things like “Teachers don’t want a bunch of crap to lug home” and “I have no closet space because I save all the gifts I hate,” so I’m a convert to gift cards. $10 Target cards all around!