gifts

A few summers back my friend Kayley gave my boys Moonsand for their birthday. After spending a few weeks trying to clean up the bright orange mess from the cracks in the wood floors, the table, the carpet and the backyard grass I gave Kayley's daughter some lipstick and nail polish for her 3rd birthday. Why is it that we all love to give other people's kids things that we know the parents are going to hate?
I once gave Paige's son a Wiggles t-shirt for his birthday and I'm pretty sure she's still holding a grudge. My aunt Cathy always brings very LOUD toys for my kids - whistles, bike horns, kazoos, singing Christmas penguins - you get the point. The interesting thing is that these kinds of gifts are typically revenge motivated. So tell me what I should be thinking when my mom gave my kids two packages of silky crayons. If you aren't familiar with silky crayons, think lipstick. She might as well have signed my kids up for Avon or Mary Kay. While very fun to play with, silky crayons are greasy and smudgy and sadly do not come out of carpet. The good news is that if any kind of crime goes down in our neighborhood, our house has already been fingerprint dusted. In multicolor.
Hey Mom, I hope you like the puppy I got you for Mother's Day!