Gift Bags

Steve and I went to pick Jack up from school this evening, and quickly got hints that it was going to be a wild ride. For starters, Renee, one of the directors told us, "Your son is a Smurf." Why? Because today was Nicholas's birthday, and he brought cupcakes with royal blue, Smurf-hued icing. And Jack proceeded to spread said icing all over his face and hands. That icing tinted his skin.


"He had fun," Renee continued, "And he has a gift bag that he can't wait to get his hands on."

Gift bag? Oh, no.


Every once in a while, a kid in Jack's class has a birthday. They bring cupcakes, which is cool, but they also bring these crappy little plastic gift bags. In the gift bags are crappy little items that Jack becomes hideously obsessed with. It's about 75 cents worth of junk that makes me want to drink about $20 worth of wine. As soon as he gets his hands on one, I am plotting when I can divert his attention and throw the damned thing away.

This particular gift bag contained a lollypop, a small notepad (which apparently Jack needs to jot down ideas for the story he's writing for the school paper?), a Thomas the Tank Engine noisemaker, and a superball.

Jack ate the lollypop on the way home, making his hands sticky, in addition to being blue. He then spent a tremendous amount of time taking the stuff in and out of his gift bag. If only his success matched his determination, because he repeatedly couldn't get it to work, prompting him to whine and cry. He then likes to rip the plastic bag into little shreds, getting pissed when static electricity makes them stick to his hands. Usually the noisemaker gets all slobbery, rendering it a useless pile of cardboard pulp.


Today's superball rendered the gift bag even more of a problem than usual. I hate to be the kind of person who complains about this stuff, but a superball is a freaking choking hazard. Jack popped it into his mouth, and I confiscated it, causing a huge screaming tantrum fit. I was about ready to join him, though as Jack wailed, "Baaaalll!" I was going to wail, "Damn you, Nicholas's mommy!"

The good news is that I got the bag away and threw it in the trash before Jack became best friends forever with it. Roary also enjoyed the icing.

And Jack's dinner of tomato soup combined with his blue flesh to make a very interesting hue.