Ha, ha, ha!  The Blog Blast for this week is oh, so interesting.  They’ve challenged us to write about gift-giving grandparents.  They want us to dish the dirt on grandparents who give noisy toys, shirts with dinosaurs, and hideous plastic nonsense.  They’d like us to share how we handle this dilemma and guide them towards wooden blocks and designer duds.  I’m sure you know what I mean.  So here are my thoughts:

I will admit that when my children were younger (okay, occasionally this still happens), I dreaded the shirt with the _____ (insert any type of figure here).  Anyone who ever looked at the clothes my toddlers wore could plainly see that I favored overalls, preferably plaid or khaki.  My children didn’t wear sweatpants around town and certainly not shirts with dinosaurs on them.

Until they got some, that is, as a gift from grandma.  Thanks, Grandma, I really appreciate that.

The children, however, loved them!

When my kids’ faces lit up and they put on those shirts I realized that their gifts aren’t about me at all.  (I can be a bit slow that way.)  Grandma isn’t buying what I like, she’s buying what they like.  And I can’t fault her there.  Isn’t that what gift-givers are supposed to do?

Now does this mean I hope for shirts with decals, noisy instruments or big, plastic randomness?  Oh, no, I still selfishly dream away. 

But I love that my kids’ grandparents love them enough to buy what they’d like and that they expect me to be big enough to deal with it.

Thanks for all the gifts, grandmas, and even more, the love that comes with them. 

Check out the Grandkids Gift Guide for all sorts of gift-giving ideas.  To read what other bloggers have to say about gift-giving grandparents, peruse the posts at the Parent Bloggers Network.