Mother's Day Gift Guide

these are actual links that popped up when I googled "mother's day gift" let's file these under "don't...oh please, please DONNNNN'T"

• mom's own slot machine! WITH 500 free tokens! show mom you love her with free tokens!
• $25 best buy gift card here mom, get yourself a CD, and maybe a 20oz pepsi, since $25 won't get you much else at best buy.
• a poem on a plate this is the cheap plastic plate that she'll hang proudly while the kids are looking. then slowly -over a span of months- move it from the living room, to the spare room, to the basement.
• "mom" jewelry the ring isn't hideous. I just...I can't....I can't get with "mom" anything. We know she's a mom, those kids that follow her around at the grocery store confirm our suspicions. plus, the whole mass-produced-jewelry-that-every-other-mom-is-wearing thing.
• its a ...cartoon I don't understand.
• a lollipop bouquet ok, its candy, I'll give you that. But its crazy pastel lollipops. This is really a gift for your kids, since they'll raid it and she'll let them.

So what DO I get, you ask? allow me...

• custom silhouettes of the kids traditional and contemporary. and less work than getting them dressed, out the door, and sitting still for a formal photo without one of them hitting each other.
• hairpins they're cute, the kids can each pick out a pair.
• a purse or a cute clutch or wallet
• some nice soap put together a nice soap/lotion/girly skin stuff basket for bonus points.
• tea and cookies yup, cookies. its the internet man, you can get anything. cookies come to your door, and someone else is cleaning flour off their counters. awesome.
• if you're going to go for candy get her something she doesn't have to share.
• kindle I really tried not to like this thing. I like BOOKS, real paper, real ink, BOOKS. Not these dad-gum gizmos. Too many gizmos these days. BUT...then I fiddled with a friends' ...and I do like it (hate when that happens, now I want one) Plus, its nice when she's reading and sets the book down, and a certain 5 year old comes along and closes the book for her. Re-reading 10 pages while you find the place you left off is always fun. Doesn't happen with a kindle.

If you're still going to go for the gift card, at LEAST make sure its to her FAVORITE store. Ya know the one, the store she goes into often, but rarely buys anything. The "I don't understand how anyone could spend that much money on ____" store. Whether its clothes, yarn, hunting gear, a gallery, or the tattoo shop. That's the one.

Just NOT the sweatshirt with "mommy of ___ angels" with each of the kids as a cartoon stick figure with spiky hair. Please no. thankyou.