Gifts

At what age do you need to start giving a gift in response to an invitation sent to you?

I ask you because we seem to be getting invites to kiddushim from people that we do not really associate with but they feel the need to invite us, for whatever reason. I am not complaining. We try to make the trek to the appropriate simcha hall and wish them Mazel Tov. Sometimes it will be with the kids, others one of us will go, depending on why we were invited.

We have not been so ontop of the gift giving. We do give, don't get me wrong, but there are times when I realize that we simply neglected the invite and pushed it aside for a long time that it just got lost in the shuffle, if you know what I mean. How late can one give a gift? I know they will always accept one but what is the time frame? And what do you do when you are unsure if you gave one or not? I have a few of that, where I am not sure if I gave a gift or not and it was not a check, so I can't look that one up!

My neighbors send out kiddush cards. We do not attempt to go to every one of them nor do I send off a gift. But now I want to. Now I want to be ontop of this gift giving and figure out how many invites we receive a year and budget for it. Some I can tell by looking at the family calendar and figure out how many Bar/Bat mitzvahs there will be for the year. But weddings are unpredictable as well as community affairs. Call me a scrooge, but there is only so much that I want to cut into my "savings for x" account to give to people especially those whom I don't have much to do with.

I need to keep a spread sheet that tells me what I gave who. I don't need siblings of the recipient or the parents comparing gifts. Nor do I want cousins to do the same. Not that I really care we are usually equal, but you never know what will happen on day.

But what do you do with the invites you get from old acquaintances? The ones where you had nothing to do with for the past five years and then all of a sudden you get a wedding invite. You don't go to the wedding for whatever reason, but do you need to give a gift or what? And if you give a check, how much is it for? I like actual gifts to give to those who you can (i.e when you go to the wedding) vs a check, but as the saying goes "everyone can use money".

So please respond with what you do and what you think your friends do, I am always so curious what "my age" people do and what "not my age" people do.

Thanks

Potty Training

I am trying hard to get my 2 1/2 year old to outgrow diapers. I am so not used to this. I haven't worked this hard with my other two, but that was because their daycamp actually had a hand in it. But his birthday is right before camp this year, and he needs not to have diapers. I refuse to buy diapers in bulk anymore because I simply do not want leftovers in the house. His playgroup teacher is great and encouraging, but she has 7 others in her group so she cannot always take him when he says so and have nothing happen. I do know she would love to have one less diaper to change as well.

He wants to stay a little boy. He told me so. He told me "me little boy." When I tell him to use the toilet instead of a diaper he says "me don't know how!" I asked him what he wants if he wears underwear. He said a big lion. So I bought him a lion (not a plush one). I showed it to him and told him it is on top of the freezer and said when he doesn't make in diapers, he can have it. He was so mad. I can't blame him. Who really wants to grow up? He is the baby of the family and is enjoying it, though he does think he is like his 5 year old brother or 7 year old sister. He also enjoys his crib. My other son was out of the crib at this age already. He was jumping over the bar so we removed it (rather have him get out than jump out and possibly get hurt. This one, bli ayin hara, hasn't really tried in a really long time. This I am not complaining!

I have a door hanger in the bathroom that is used as a chart. It came with the new potty we got for him. (okay, we got one as a gift when my second child was born, but we already had one at home, so we left at my mom. Now we gave the one we had at home to his playgroup so he can use it there...so we needed a new one at home, so we used the gift that was given to us 5+ years ago.) Inside came a rewards chart with stickers and a chart. I have used it. I then went out and bought a cushy seat for the toilet because *see above comment, he thinks he is older than 2 1/2 and his siblings don't use a potty, they use the toilet! ANYTHING to get him to stop using diapers!! I am in search of Cookie Monster underwear as well. For some reason, he got himself into cookie monster. Picks out all the CM diapers first! I bought a pair, but it turned out that it was only Elmo. He accepted but I want CM for him.

His biggest fans are his siblings. They are a great big help. They encourage him. Cheer him on. But it still doesn't seem to be helping as much as I would like. As soon as he gets home from playgroup, I take off his diaper and put on underwear. He usually has 0-1 accidents. When he wets his underwear, I put on a new pair of pants with nothing underneath. He is very upset and doesn't like it, but it helps. But this is only short term because during the day he is in diapers.

Wish me luck. I hope by his upsherin or sooner (pesach?!) he is DONE for good! I can manage pull-ups at night...

Why do we Blog

Why do we blog?

Why do people feel the need to write about their life so openly and leave it hanging on the internet forever? I don't understand the need for strangers to read your most inner thoughts and feelings. Not only that, but you will post something, leave it there and forget about it. Then one day on a google search or something, someone will chance upon it and figure out the anonymous blogger and all hell breaks loose.

Blogging can be fun but can also get troublesome. If you are anonymous you need to always remain anonymous and make sure that what you write is not known to others as you never know who will read it without you knowing. If you are writing about yourself or openly (like me) you still need to be careful that nothing will come and haunt you. (been there done that).

So then again, why do people write about the most intimate things? Or write about things they will never discuss with others or to shy to talk about? There are those who will be more vocal on line than in person. If you would meet the person in real life, you would be surprised that they are one and the same. The blogs that flow smoothly and have interesting things to say are the best blogs out there (in my opinion).

Sorry for not updating, but life takes funny turns and you end up dealing with new things daily.

Have a great Shabbos, and oh year, Happy New Year. Let 2007 be a better year than 2006 (no matter how good '06 was)

For those who realized, I just celebrated my 8th anniversary and going to celebrate next month my big birthday. Need to mentally prepare for that birthday....