June 18, 2025 by suzanne day by day

Gift Ideas for a Twelve Year Old

What should I get Carla for her birthday?

(Also: how is she turning twelve????? Wasn’t it just yesterday that I was asking for How to Get Labor Started ideas?)

(I have somehow evaded my typical Carla’s Birthday Melancholia the past two years, possibly because of Moving Stress and then Joy of Not Moving, but it’s back, baby, and it’s better than ever. One of my friends noted that I only have six years left with Carla in my house. SIX YEARS. This is already the third summer we’ve been in this house! Six years will be gone in an instant! SOB!)

Okay, back to the subject at hand.

To be honest, when I think of gifts for Carla, I get so weary. We already have so much stuff. My husband and I decided that our big gift for the kiddo would be tickets to see a play – and we got an extra ticket so we can take a friend of her choice with us. Experiences are always better than things, right?

In terms of other experience gifts, I’ve also toyed with the idea of allowing her to dye her hair (probably just a streak of bright blue or purple or whatever). Carla requested getting a second piercing in her ears, which – fine, but let’s maybe wait a few years for that one. We want to take her to New York City for a weekend (she’s never been), and do all the NYC things… but I think we’d rather save that for when she turns thirteen. (Will a trip to NYC compete with everyone else’s b’mai mitzvah??? Probably not, but we can’t have it all.)

I am looking for a couple of gifts that Carla can unwrap. But it’s not easy. She’s at that transitional age where she’s not quite sure what she wants. She still thinks she likes OMG dolls and the endless array of surprise toys… but whenever she buys one of those things, she loses interest very quickly. (Nonetheless, I think she would get considerable joy from this Miniverse All You Can Eat collection.) She would also enjoy gift cards that she can spend herself; she does not approve of me picking out clothing for her any longer. But the gift card/shopping spree thing is something she often does with her grandmother, so it doesn’t feel quite as special as it should. (I also don’t want to pre-empt her grandmother’s gift idea when I know full well how difficult it is to come up with gift ideas.)

Let’s see. Here are a few ideas I’ve been throwing around.

Miracle berries: Carla and I have both heard about miracle berries before (they supposedly make sour and bitter foods taste sweet?), but there may have been an article about this in a recent-ish issue of Highlights, so it’s more top of mind lately. These strike me as the perfect birthday gift: expensive enough you wouldn’t buy them for yourself; a purely fun, novel thing to experience and share with friends. Bonus: these are consumable so they would presumably not live in my house until the end of time.

Candy subscription: My husband requested a Universal Yums subscription for Father’s Day, so we gladly complied. Which got Carla interested in her own treat subscription. I don’t think she’d eat everything in a Universal Yums box, though, so maybe candy would be a better way to go? There’s a fun retro candy club that she might enjoy, or a candy-of-the-month club. I don’t love her eating so much sugar, but she adores candy and adores getting mail and I know she’d get such a kick out of this.

New scooter: One of Carla’s favorite things to do is to ride around the neighborhood with the neighbor kids on her scooter. Her existing scooter is fine, maybe, even though it’s at least five years old… but is there a better option? Maybe she’d enjoy an electric scooter? (John Hamm, scooters are expensive!!!!)

New bike: What she could definitely use is a new bike. We got her a bike back in 2020 and it has lasted a nice long time, but she is now too tall for it. The only problem with getting her a new one is that it’s hard to know the correct size for her now – especially if we don’t really want to buy another new one in a couple of years.

Board game: Carla has always loved board games, and we’ve been on a game kick lately. (Her current favorites are Telestrations and Clue.) I think this Smug Owls game sounds fun. She has either heard about What Do You Meme or played it with friends, because she’s asked for this one specifically. I also think Six Second Scribbles could be enjoyable for her, especially because she enjoys Telestrations so much.

*image from gap.com; this model’s expression is so apt*

Sweatsuit: One of the few things Carla has specifically asked for is “a cute sweatshirt and sweatpants set.” I like this one from Abercrombie & Fitch, and I know the pants of that brand fit her. She’s into pale yellow lately, so maybe this one from the Gap would be good?

Drafting chair: I am really embarrassed that we STILL have yet to get Carla a chair for her craft room. We have been promising that we’d get her one for a long while now, and have never followed through. Would this be a good gift, though, or would it be fulfilling a promise?? You know I love a practical gift, but this almost seems too practical.

Animals watercolor book: Carla’s crafty and she loves animals. I think this would be a fun intersection of those things.

Handlebar speaker: This would be perfect for Carla to take with her on bike rides/scoots around the neighborhood.

Comfy: This is another one that Carla requested specifically. She and my husband got me a Comfy years ago, which Carla promptly adopted. (It was, indeed, comfy, but I don’t need anything that helps make me hot. I’ve got that covered.) It’s possible that the Comfy got “lost” during the move to this house, and now Carla would like her own.

Book subscription: This, of course, would really serve my never-ending quest to get Carla to read more. But I love that this particular subscription comes with little gifts the reader can open at specific points in the book. That might help keep Carla’s attention and scratch the “surprise gift” itch at the same time.

UGG slippers: Carla has loved and worn her UGG boots so much since she got them in December that they have holes in the toes. I could probably just get her new UGG boots, but the slippers seem more summer-appropriate, somehow???

Pool toys: Carla loves to be in the pool, but prefers to be Doing Something (gymnastics, games) instead of Just Swimming. I like these swim-through rings and I bet she would, too.

Outdoor game: Skee-ball is the only game I’ve ever enjoyed at an arcade, and this flyball game looks like a fun way to bring that game home. The only thing is, I’m not sure Carla has ever played something similar?

Cookbook: My kid is a picky eater, and yet she is also interested in the concept of cooking things. She often earmarks the recipes in Highlights, and is enrolled in a week-long cooking camp this summer. I wonder if she would find enough things that pique her interest in this book to try? Maybe it would be easier to appeal to her sweet tooth with a baking-centric cookbook instead?

Cat garden kit: No one is more obsessed with Lenny than Carla, and I think she might love growing and tending to a little cat garden for him. There’s the cat grass version, complete with tools. This option has four separate grasses to grow. Or there’s this luxury cat lawn – wait, this is not a post about gifts for Lenny.

Cat training kit: Carla loves training the dogs in our neighborhood. Perhaps she would get a kick out of training Lenny?

Skincare set: Carla requested some skincare items. I don’t know if she’ll use them, but it’s probably good to get started on a routine even if it’s not something she follows exactly. I’d especially like to get her into regular daily application of sunscreen. This set has multiple options.

If you were turning twelve, what would you most want to unwrap? Lenny enjoys the wrapping paper as much as the gifts themselves.

June 13, 2025 by suzanne day by day

Birthday Sleepover Awkwardness

Why yes I am dramatically behind in planning and/or even thinking about my child’s birthday party this year, why do you ask?

For one thing, my husband is on call on Carla’s birthday weekend, which means we have to find a different date for the party (just… trust me. we are not doing a party on a call weekend), and I can’t figure out what that date should be. Seems like it should be obvious, or that there should be some reasonable candidates, but I am struggling. We’re up against camp and holidays and other birthday parties and vacation and no date seems workable.

For another thing, Carla has been happily discussing plans for her party for several months now, so it feels like I don’t have anything to do. When in reality, I have ALL THE THINGS to do because her saying “I want to have a water theme” doesn’t make water-themed décor magically appear in my house, nor does her making a list of kids she wants to invite equate actually inviting anyone.

Let’s start there, with the invitations, because that’s part of the delay, I think.

Carla wants a sleepover party this year. Here’s the thing: I refuse to have more than six children in my house overnight. Why this number, I don’t know. All I know is that I can hardly deal with having one child over for a sleepover, it goes against everything in my constitution, and the thought of something like ten kids makes me hyperventilate. I know a large sleepover party is doable. One of Carla’s friends had, like, twenty girls sleep over last year. But that kid’s mom is a very different person from me, in almost every way, which instead of making “big sleepover” seem possible, makes it seem even less possible, if that makes any sense. Hell, even my own mother hosted big sleepovers with probably ten or more kids when I was in middle school. My mother was FANTASTIC at birthday parties, let me tell you.

Carla is amenable to the limit, but she would love to have a BIG PARTY with all her friends, and then have a select few stay the night after the party and I… well, I have put my foot down about this. And I’m feeling like I want to walk it back, but I also still agree with my reasons for saying no in the first place.

This may sound like a non-sequitur, but stay with me here: We have reached an age where birthday party invite lists have begun to be… tricky. Like, I am theoretically 100% behind Carla or any child only inviting people to her birthday that she wants at her birthday. We are long past the days when you invited the entire class or – in some cases – the entire grade. And I theoretically completely understand that just because parents are friends with one another does not mean their children are also friends with one another.

In practice, it feels so different and yucky to leave people out, especially if they are the kids of your friends. And yet: six person limit.

My reason for not doing the big party with the smaller sleepover is related to that yucky feeling. I don’t want to leave anyone out, I don’t want anyone to feel less special or less of a friend or lesser in any way because they weren’t included in the super exclusive sleepover contingent. Carla’s argument is twofold. First, she says that other kids have big parties and then a few kids sleepover. Second, she says that she would never, ever mention to anyone that only a few kids would sleepover. My rebuttal is that kids a) aren’t great at secrets and b) can be mean and c) people always find out!

Other people DO do this! I have picked up my kid from several birthday parties, and a couple kids remain behind to stay for a sleepover extension. This has never bothered me because I have only recently allowed Carla to sleep over anywhere. But it has bothered Carla. She always feels left out and wonders why not her. We had a good reason: she wasn’t allowed. That helped soothe the hurt feelings. Plus, she’s a very cheerful kid who gets over things pretty swiftly. But what about the other kids who may not have mean sleepover-hating moms to blame their lack of fun on, or who may be struggling with finding their crew, or whose feelings are sharper and longer lasting?

(I have no good place to stick this point, but I want to head off any suggestions that Carla invite one or even two people over. I think I could be okay with a Big Party and one kid sleeping over after. But Carla doesn’t have a Best Friend, so that doesn’t really make sense in her situation. Plus, I think part of the allure of the Big Sleepover is the BIGNESS of it.)

We’re not doing Big Party with the Small Sleepover. We just aren’t. I mean, I suppose I could hold two events on two separate days but NO THANK YOU ONE PARTY IS ENOUGH I MEAN IT. Please, back me up here, because I can feel my resistance crumbling as I type and I know I will RUE MYSELF if I give in to the two party plan. Can a person rue herself? Even if that’s not a thing, I will.

Because I cannot and will not host two separate parties (right????? that would be dumb?????), and because I refuse to make a portion of birthday invitees feel like the B Team, I am trying to work myself up to a slightly bigger sleepover. Like… eight people??? Could I do ten? It’s always possible that we invite ten and only three show up. That would be IDEAL, honestly. But in my experience, if you plan on that kind of attrition, everyone shows up and also one kid brings her out-of-town cousin.

Carla is not the problem here. She has narrowed her list down to five invitees, with very little pleading and negotiating. I AM THE PROBLEM. There are some kids that I would like to invite just out of… I don’t know. Mom friendship? Duty? Duty invites? That’s awful. No one wants to be at a party because the birthday girl’s MOM wants you there. I am sure the duty invitees would HATE THAT, and Carla might also hate it too, and I can see right now that if I tell her to invite A, she will ask, “If I can have an extra spot for A, why can’t I invite B instead?” which makes total sense; I refer you back to my theoretical conviction that a kid should only invite kids to her birthday party that she wants at her birthday party. And even if I upped the guest list count to ten, there’s no guarantee that the duty invitees would make that cut, either. (Ugh ugh ugh. I need a different way to frame this than “duty invitees,” because these kids are sweet and wonderful and fun and they just aren’t in Carla’s immediate circle, that’s all there is to it.)

Listen. Pretty much no one these days is going around inviting every kid in the class/grade or even every kid of one gender in the class/grade. Carla has been invited to three birthday parties this year, that’s it. So I get it. Not everyone gets invited. That’s not how friendship works. We moms all say, “We understand.” And I know that we do. If Carla didn’t get an invitation to a specific kid’s party, I would understand. That doesn’t mean it wouldn’t sting.

Someone’s feelings are going to get hurt. Perhaps many someones. Perhaps someone’s mom’s feelings are going to get hurt too. I don’t want to be the cause of it!

Do you see? Do you SEE why I am struggling to plan the party when I cannot figure out the guest list??????

Clearly I am in bit of a tizz. We’ll have to reconvene later to discuss present ideas and cake. (We have one gift for Carla: a pair of tickets to a play we think [hope] she wants to see. Nearly Twelve is exceedingly difficult to shop for!)

Let’s look at a soft sleepy kitten to soothe the jangled nerves.

June 26, 2024 by suzanne day by day

Annual Pre-Birthday Fret Fest, Activate!

Oh, hi. It is That Time of Year when I begin to fret about Carla’s birthday party.

Didn’t we already take care of this, you may be wondering? And yes, yes, I thought I had taken care of it way back in April. Well. The best laid plans, etc.

To keep you updated: The theme is still Beach, the party is still at our house. It is still ostensibly a pool party. Will we be able to use the pool or will there be thunderstorms? Who’s to say, Internet. Who’s to say. Also, there is no lifeguard because “securing a lifeguard” in April does not mean securing a lifeguard. It means that your need for a lifeguard goes into some sort of system – but not a system accessible to all the people who work at the lifeguard staffing place – and then you have to call back a month in advance of your event and then thrice a week after that to be told, every time, “Call back on [date two or seven days hence] and we should definitely know whether we have a lifeguard for your event.”

I prefer to send out invitations to an event no fewer than four weeks in advance. That deadline flew past, because I was not going to invite umpteen children to my house without a lifeguard on hand. I know my limits. Finally, two weeks before the party, I convinced Carla to cull her list down to five and sent out the invitations. These kids are all good and experienced swimmers, and my husband and I are going to watch them every second. My in-laws will be there to do things that require leaving the pool area – showing kids to the bathroom, getting waters, answering the door for the food delivery. We are not having any parents stay, in part because that’s a whole additional level of stress but also in part because the more people on hand, the less confident I am that anyone will be watching the swimmers.

Listen. I understand, fully, that the lifeguard staffing place has a lot of factors to consider. First, summer JUST started, and it’s prime lifeguard season, and I’m sure they’ve been scrambling to find enough high school and college kids to staff all their clients’ needs. Plus, I am guessing that their primary business comes from country clubs and community centers and camps, who all need multiple lifeguards for multiple days a week, and I completely see how it would be a priority to staff those bigger clients before my tiny one-time party.

And yet… if you cannot promise a lifeguard for an event, perhaps do not promise a lifeguard for an event?!

*I pulled this meme from somewhere on the internet and I’m sorry about the typo.*

The most maddening thing about the lifeguard issue is that when I finally called them, a week before the party, and told them I no longer needed a lifeguard because I couldn’t deal with the uncertainty (I left a message and I promise I was as nice as possible over the phone; it’s not the fault of the people who do the scheduling), they called me back later that day and left a message that said, “We have a lifeguard for you, in case you change your mind.” ARGH.

Other people probably would have taken the lifeguard staffing person’s promise of “Oh, I’m SURE we’ll have someone for you.” (followed, always, by, “But call back next Monday just to confirm”) as good enough, but I couldn’t do it.

MOVING ON.

You may have noticed back there a few vents ago that I referenced food delivery. And lo, we are no longer having a taco party. My husband convinced me and Carla that getting takeout from a local restaurant would be better and easier. (And more expensive, probably? But I didn’t do any sort of price comparison because I don’t want to know.)

Carla also vacillated WILDLY about what kind of dessert to serve. We began, back in April, with beachy cupcakes. Then she decided she didn’t want cupcakes, she wanted some sort of frozen treat.

Carla did vacillate back to cupcakes and now I’m making watermelon cupcakes.

I couldn’t put together exactly the right LOOK she wanted (I get the feeling her entire vision was based around Ken from the Barbie movie and I could not get that vibe together), so we settled on flamingoes. (There are a ton of cute flamingo options out there, if you are looking for a flamingo theme.) But then she decided she wanted flip flops as part of the theme, too, and then watermelons… and there seem to be plenty of options available if you want to throw a watermelon-themed party or a flip-flop-themed party, but nothing that effortlessly already combines watermelons and flip flops and flamingoes and beach. So now the whole thing feels very chaotic to me. I realize this is a Me Problem, and none of the kids will care, and it will be cute, and the theme will be, loosely, BEACH as intended, and it will be fine and I should waste NO MORE TIME on thinking about this at all.

Should, of course, being the operative word.

Okay. Food and theme sorted. Now I am in the throes of What If Our Pool Party Becomes an Indoor Party? anxiety, because – as you already Well Know if you’ve read this blog for any length of time – a party at my house is my nightmare.

Every year since Carla was, I think, three, I have outsourced the party part of her birthday to someone else: a paint-your-own-painting place or an indoor playground or a petting zoo or a nature hike. This is important to me for two very important-to-me reasons: 1. I don’t have to have a bunch of people in my home which I find stressful on cleanliness/food prep/introvert levels, and 2. SOMEONE ELSE TAKES CARE OF THE ENTERTAINMENT. I do not know how to entertain people! I am not entertaining! The only reason I agreed to having a party at my home is because the pool is the entertainment. If we remove the pool from the equation, we have nothing. NOTHING.

Taking a step back, I think – I really do – that the kids would be okay if they all just hung out in Carla’s room and chatted and did whatever it is tweens do when they are together. But my FEAR is that they will be bored and teenagery and they will have a terrible time and blame Carla for it and she won’t have any friends.

Yes, yes, ths is catastrophic thinking at its finest (speaking of, of course I have spent many many hours worrying about drowning and other pool related injuries, don’t think I haven’t), I have taken The Threat of the Indoor Party way too far; it will be fine. Even if they are a little bored, it will be fine. Maybe the weather will even be swimmable! Who knows!

Despite knowing that it will be fine, here is where I am: in a mild state of panic (much milder, I swear, than the all-caps multi-thousands of words might imply), and trying to soothe my panic with rational thoughts and also trying to plan non-boring and fun and cool tweenage things to do just in case they get all bored and mopey and why-did-I-come-herey and I-want-to-go-homey.

Just to be 100% clear: I FULLY REALIZE I am overthinking things. That is sort of my brand, the overthinking. I promise you that I KNOW I can simply plop the kids down in front of the TV and they will be fine. BUT. It helps me to have A Contingency Plan, and so that’s what I’m trying to assemble.

Help me? Please?

Here are my ideas so far:

1. A Treasure Hunt. Always a good option. Always fun for me to put together, even if they are stressful and tie my brain in knots. In my experience, group treasure hunts aren’t that great – there’s always one kid who reads really fast and takes over and the other kids are left to trail behind. But I could divide the kids into teams of two and they could compete with one another; in fact, I panic bought a bunch of clearance items from Michael’s that I could use as door prizes. But treasure hunts are a LOT of work and they always take far less time for the kids to complete than they take me to put together.

2. Truth or Dare. The kids seem to love to play truth or dare, as I did when I was their age. Because I am (tada!) an overanxious parent, I would probably come up with some pre-planned truths and dares and print them on slips of paper for the kids to choose. That way, we could hopefully avoid destructive/dangerous dares and awkward/hurtful truths. (Like “what’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever eaten?” and “what superpower would you want?” instead of “what’s your most embarrassing moment?” or “who do you have a crush on?”) (By the way, this is probably a worthwhile topic for another day: the intervention of parents in their kids’ lives in order to prevent them from experiencing awkwardness/weirdness/discomfort. I have wildly conflicted feeling about that, and also have a child who attends a school where keeping kids comfortable is the norm, for all the strengths and weaknesses of that approach. Which means all her friends have that as their norm, which makes me feel like I need to uphold it when I am hosting them. Again. Different, MUCH THORNIER topic.)

3. Beach Themed Scattergories. I can make a Scattergories scoring card in Canva and print it out for everyone. This might keep them busy for a while, and I could give prizes to the winners of each round.

4. Who Am I?/Celebrity. This one is fun, but it strikes me as kind of difficult because I don’t know which celebs the kids know. It’s not like they are all sitting around watching Full House and Saved by the Bell and a handful of the exact same shows everyone else is watching the way I did as a kid. TSwift and their math teacher are pretty much the only people I can think of that they are all guaranteed to recognize. (They also all probably know our current and former Presidents, but since we all come from different spots on the political spectrum, I don’t think that’s a good option here.)

5. You vs the Birthday Girl? Originally, I thought it might be fun to do something like, “who knows the birthday girl best?” but I would want to be careful not to weight it too heavily in favor of Carla’s best friend. So I’m thinking of a game that awards points for things they can compare, like, “has the same number of letters in her name” or “has the same color eyes” or “has bigger feet” or “is wearing earrings” or things along those lines???

6. Nail Polish Spin the Bottle. I saw this on a website somewhere and to be honest, I’m not exactly sure how it works? I think the gist is, you line up ten bottles of nail polish, then spin a bottle of clear polish in the middle, and then you have to paint one toe or fingernail the color you land on. This requires a lot of nail polish… but I could get some from the dollar store. My biggest concern with this game is that the kids will get nail polish on the carpet.

7. Guess That Tune. We no longer have an Alexa, so we can’t play Song Quiz. But my husband could probably set something up and the kids could keep track of who wins. I don’t know though – seems like a lot of work for a small payoff.

8. Hide the Candy. I could totally buy a bunch of small, wrapped candy (like tootsie rolls, hork) and hide those all over the house. I feel like maybe Elisabeth did this for a party in the near-recent past, and I recall reading it and feeling astounded by its genius and its simplicity.

9. A Craft. The craft store (yes, I did go to both Michael’s AND the craft store, what of it) had some little flamingo suncatcher crafts on clearance: buy one get TWO free, and that was a theme appropriate deal I could not pass up. It is quite young for the kids – you just paint a plastic thing – but it’s On Theme and it could be something to do. A LAST RESORT, if you will. If we don’t do this craft during the party, I will pop the packages into the kids’ favor bags.

~~10. Poke a Prize.~~ Carla mentioned this idea briefly – once – awhile ago, and I kind of mumbled and changed the subject, because it is TOO much work, and it also requires some sort of competition so the kids can pick a prize. I did it once in 2020, and it was glorious, and I plan to never do it again.

Okay, here is where you come in. Do any of these games sound reasonable? (We are not going to discuss whether my need for A Contingency Plan is reasonable.) Do any of them sound like instant party sinkers? Do you have any other Awesome Tween Appropriate Games or Activities in your back pocket? Is having gifties/prizes a good idea (to incentivize participation) or a terrible idea? (They will all also get identical treat bags at the end of the party.) I was kind of planning on making sure each kid gets one prize, but maybe that’s… infantilizing? Eleven-year-olds are VERY aware of being babied, based on my limited experience. And, I mean, a pencil case is fun but is your life going to be ruined if you don’t get one?