{"id":1265,"date":"2007-07-04T21:59:21","date_gmt":"2007-07-05T02:59:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/boydsnest.org\/news\/2007\/gift-etiquette\/"},"modified":"2008-03-19T17:25:07","modified_gmt":"2008-03-19T22:25:07","slug":"thanks-for-the-sponges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/boydsnest.org\/news\/2007\/thanks-for-the-sponges\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Thanks for the sponges!&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Kids tend to be pretty blunt, which isn&#8217;t a bad thing &#8212; until it comes time for them to open birthday gifts. <!--more--> I remember struggling to hide my own feelings about presents I didn&#8217;t like as a child and feeling like I wasn&#8217;t that convincing. (Jon would tell you that I still am a terrible liar.) So, I loved reading this great idea from &#8220;_Parents_&#8221;:http:\/\/parents.com\/ magazine:<\/p>\n<p>bq.. Before a party, we all go around the house and collect things that make horrible presents. Some past winners have been old kitchen sponges and a half-used bar of soap. Then we wrap the goodies and give them to each other. The challenge is to say something nice about whatever you open. &#8220;The green of that sponge matches my shirt!&#8221; If your kid can think of something nice to say about a slimy sliver of soap, he&#8217;ll have no problem being gracious about getting mittens instead of the toy he really wanted.<\/p>\n<p> &#8212;  &#8220;The Fun Mom&#8217;s Guide to Discipline,&#8221; _Parents_, June 2007, p. 68.<\/p>\n<p>p. <img src='http:\/\/boydsnest.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/07\/img_7590.JPG' alt='Gift etiquette' class=\"alignright\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I look forward to trying this out with Lucy someday!<\/p>\n<p>p{color:gray}. Photo: Here&#8217;s Lucy opening a present with unfeigned enjoyment on her first birthday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kids tend to be pretty blunt, which isn&#8217;t a bad thing &#8212; until it comes time for them to open birthday gifts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-free-advice","category-kids"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/boydsnest.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/boydsnest.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/boydsnest.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/boydsnest.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/boydsnest.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/boydsnest.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1265\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/boydsnest.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/boydsnest.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/boydsnest.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}