Friday, November 18, 2011

Scott To The Rescue!

I have a gift shelf, like many moms I know, of things I've picked up on sale here or there so I have something on hand for when Ellie gets invited to birthday parties and/or when I need a reward for her good behavior. 

But somehow, even though they are things I think would make good gifts (I'm partial to board games and like to gift them, for instance), when faced with a party for a specific kid, everything on the gift shelf that isn't earmarked for my kid looks ... generic. Which I guess it is, since it was bought without a specific recipient in mind. 

Last month, I grabbed something off the gift shelf for a party for one of Ellie's classmates who I knew well enough to know she'd love one of the Klutz books I'd bought for Ellie: Fairies: Petal People You Make Yourself.
 

Of course, when Ellie saw what she was giving Rose for her birthday, she cried because she wanted it. Of course. After all, I knew she'd love it, that's why I had bought it for her! She doesn't know, but I've bought another copy for her, which she'll get for Chanukah.

So tonight, I found myself standing in front of my gift shelf again. Ellie's going to a party tomorrow for a girl she met at daycare after I got sick, when they were 2.5. I'm not sure why I didn't look earlier, but I stood in front of the shelf late this afternoon and everything was either not girly enough (she's a very girly girl, even more so than Ellie!), something I thought was too likely she might already have, or too small a gift but not something that paired easily with anything else I had on the gift shelf. 

Luckily, Scott had decided to take Ellie to Costco for dinner and the weekly shopping trip (we buy a lot of our produce there!), and when he called me to ask if there was anything he didn't have in his cart that I wanted, I told him I needed a favor and it was likely to be unpleasant. But he agreed to visit the toy aisles, something that's not much fun with Ellie because pretty much everything she sees, she exclaims, "I want that! Oh! I want that!" But he kept me on the phone so I could help choose the "right" gift, even though he had to repeatedly remind Ellie that their mission was to find a gift for her friend, not for herself. 

And sure enough, he found the perfect gift for a little girl who's having a "spa day tea party" -- a selection of bath stuff with a Hello Kitty theme that was right in the price range I gave him. I topped it off with a flower hair clip I made that Ellie chose, and it's a lovely gift:

Doesn't the flower clip make a great "bow" for the present topper? :)

But it took at least 10 minutes of phone time to choose, and it saved me from having to make a trip out on a day I didn't make it out of my jammies and definitely didn't have the energy to go shopping. But what else could I have done if the stars hadn't aligned for Scott to be my designated shopper?


So today, I'm extra thankful for my awesome husband, who willingly tackled a task that wasn't exactly his cup of tea. :)


(I wish I was going to be able to go to this party tomorrow; it's a place I haven't heard of but it sounds very cool. You can see its website here if you're as curious as I was. I hope Ellie will pose for a photo after she's had her spa day! :)

4 comments:

deb aka abcsofra said...

Your hubby deserves an extra cup of tea for that one :-) When my daughter was smaller (now 20) she was invited to this lovely little house for a tea party themed birthday. They also dressed up the girls, did their nails and such. And they ate everything in tiny size proportions. I loved the idea and I am glad to see that it still survives today. We have a tea house here in Wilmington that I have on my to do list with my twenty year old. Tea time for two! Hope your daughter has a great time!

Helena said...

Hurrah for helpful husbands! They make our lives as chronic wives so much more tolerable, don't you think? :)

Aviva said...

He is pretty amazing! I try to remember to thank him for it every day. :)

Deb: Oh, that sounds fun! I hope you and your daughter have a wonderful time!!

Helena: Absolutely!! I honestly cringe when I think about what my life would be like without my husband in it. The best part is so does he. :) Sometimes I feel like he'd be better off as a single parent than with a chronic wife like me, but whenever I express that kind of feeling, he is very sincerely emphatic that he feels way better off than he would if he were raising Ellie on his own. I may never win Powerball, but I definitely won the spouse lottery! :)

Make handmade said...

So cute gift box! i love your flower.