Worst. Mama. Ever

OK. I stole the title for this blog from another blog site: worstmamaever.blogspot.com. For all you moms out there... it is hysterical and will make you feel better about yourself as a parent if you frequent the site.

I recently had a Worst.Mama. Ever. experience with Jake. A lot of you know that I take after my mother and am a thrift shopper- always in search of a good deal. So, about 6 months ago I was in Albertsons and saw that they had all their Crayola stuff on sale for a dollar. Only ONE DOLLAR. So, I decided to stock up for any b'days that Jake was invited to this year. I bought 5 really cool Magic Marker sets that had this black paper and special pens and when you draw on it it turns rainbow and 5 sets of clay. So for the last 5 birthday parties we have simply been wrapping up this set of crayola goodies. Jake has never mentioned to me that it bothers him, so I really didn't think anything of it (although in retrospect I wonder what it teaches him about gift giving....).

The last birthday Jake went to he came home sad. He said that the party was fun, but that his feelings were really hurt. He said that when his friend opened up his presents from the other kids he said, "This is just what I wanted!" and wanted to play with it right away, but when his friend opened the present Jake had brought he just tossed it to the side with no comment (the kid clearly needs to learn b'day ettiquette!). Jake was hurt that his friend didn't like the present. When I asked him what kinds of presents the other kids brought he said, "Fun stuff... like Transformers and games. Cool stuff." Then he started to tear up. Let me tell you, I FELT LIKE CRAP.

He has two parties coming up this week and when I called the parents to RSVP I also asked what their kid would like. One is getting a kid's tackle box and the other is getting a Transformer toy.