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How Many Holiday Gifts Should Kids Get?

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I have been struggling about gift giving this year.

George, this guy that is super hot, doesn’t talk about his feelings, and happens to be my husband, is all about extravagant Christmases: a living room full of toys that kids take all day to open.

Last year, without consulting me, he went to a store and got the kids a bunch of what I call trash toys, or plastic artifacts that are cheap, break easily, but are good to fill in the gift gaps.

I was pissed!

Then I remembered that it was the Holidays and that George is a decent husband 90% of the time, so I just said condescendingly: “you will regret it,” because I am smooth like that.

Christmas day arrived and, sure enough, the kids were not able to handle so many gifts. By 3pm they had given up on opening packages and they were ready to move on to better activities- yes, they are lame sometimes.

I gave George the loving look of “I told you so,” and made him hide the rest of the gifts in the garage to return them the next day, because women ARE PSYCHIC! And men should not doubt our predicting abilities.

This year, I waited until November to have the # of gift conversation with my husband, and, this time, it involved death threats. I don’t think is right for children to get a lot of gifts, plus, we need to remember that to whatever we buy, we need to add what grandmas, aunt, and uncles get them, too.

The whole situation was made worst because we are going to Chile for the Holidays this year and my whole family down there is into raw/vegan/non-materialistic/zen master/meditate all day sh*t.

Last November, my sister and Irish twin wrote in the family chat that there is a maximum of 2 gifts per child this year and THAT IS IT! “If anybody has a problem with that, go to hell,” she wrote. As you can see, my Chilean family has a real problem with expressing their emotions, and you know who that message was directed to: us, the Americans.

I took some time to respond because, how could I break the news to George? I had two options: a war with my husband or my Latino family. You can guess who I chose to fight.

Although I take issue with not being able to decide how many gifts I can get my kids, I also started feeling relaxed and happy about not having to buy (and then transport) a bunch of junk. My kids are 3 and 5. They are very cute, but not that sophisticated. 3 small gifts will make them as happy as 15 toys. I also realized that I am not interested in receiving anything this year. I have everything I could hope for. George and I talked about getting each other something really small and that is it.

So, here is my question to you, how many gifts are you getting your kids? Friends? Special other?

How many gifts do you think is right for children to get?

I would love to hear your comments.

The good side of all of this is that we are saving tons of money this year – insert happy millionaire emoji face.

Finally, let’s take a moment to admire the sweet children I have. The photos in this post make me want to hug them until they suffocate.

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Park Politics: How To Handle Children (And Parents) At The Park

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jestcafe.com-parkpolitics4Taking your children to the park requires high social skills. Meaning that, as parents, we need to make wise decisions about our kids’ interactions with other kid, and, most importantly, with other parents.

My favorite method is to sit back, read a book, and let children do their thing. Interceding only when necessary, aka when a kid is crying or close to death.

95% of the time conflicts get resolved just fine when adults don’t get involved, but figuring out when the other 5% of the situations are happening, that is the art of parenting at the park.

My kids are not the worst behaved in public places, but they are not the best either. I wonder if this is a boy thing, but they are always at the verge of making trouble. Pushing others too hard, throwing random elements to the sky, or not taking turns at the swing. These troubles don’t fly well with some parents, so I get involved.

jestcafe.com-parkpolitics2I have come to realize that most of the time I reprimand my kids is not because they are doing something very bad, but because of how other parents are judging the situation.

For example, your child goes to another child and takes away a toy (this has happened to me around 197 times, but, who is counting). The other kid doesn’t seem to care. He/she moves on to the next thing, but you look at his/her parent and the story is different. That parent didn’t like your kid stealing something away from his/her kid, so you intervene and scold your child and return the toy. That, right there, is the perfect example of park politics, my friends. An unnecessary action to protect yourself from the hate of another adult. It has nothing to do with your kids or parenting, as you see, but everything to do with the desire to be liked by others in public spaces (or in life).

The difficulty for me is that I want my children to explore freely, but I also want them to be polite, and we all know that polite boundaries for children are widely different than those ones for adults, don’t you think?

How do you handle awkward situations that involve young kids, other kids, or adults in public spaces? Any special advice you can give? Do you care about other parents judging you? Or, do you think kids should do their thing? Just wondering.

Thanks for stopping by and, here is a post about criticizing how others do parenting, and how many kids are enough.

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Victor Turns 5 and a Rainbow Cake

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Víctor turned 5 a couple of weeks ago. He wanted a rainbow birthday party. My heart melted.

How cute is this boy of mine? Such a lover and a force. Also, a mischief-maker, no doubt. He is becoming a big kid and his personality shows. There is no lack of self-esteem in this one, I’ll tell you.

We always celebrate Víctor’s birthday up at the cottage. The closest town is 45-minutes away, so I need to bring decorations from LA…in a suitcase…9 hours traveling. You get the picture.

This year, Víctor wanted a rainbow themed party, I hauled 6 streamer rolls of all rainbow colors from the West Coast. I also hauled colorful plastic silverware and geometric cardboard cutouts to decorate the table. All these occupied 1/3 of my suitcase. I am a good mom, I know.

For the party, Víctor wanted to have a rainbow cake. I learned a couple of things after baking that rainbow cake. First, I learned that rainbow cakes are beautiful and gross. Second, I learned that even natural food colorings are the opposite of natural. Finally, I learned that only 5 year olds eat rainbow cake. I ended up with ½ of the cake in the trash, but I did take some nice pictures and we know that this is the only thing that matters in 2016.

The party was a success. Víctor was happy. His cousins were happy. I, on the other hand, was tired because I have been the opposite of a high-achiever lately. My only interests have been to get a drink and read Nora Ephron.

If anybody asks me in the future what I did in the summer of 2016, I will say: “I drank vodka soda, read Nora Ephron, thought of my dad, and hosted a rainbow birthday party”.  I should also say that I dropped my cellphone in the water, but everybody does that once in their lifetime.

Happy Birthday my beautiful and noisy boy!

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Our 4th Of July Celebration

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