The Ultimate Birthday Gift Plot

Deondre's having a little trouble with reading in school, but he's really enjoying and starting to plow through the "My Weird School" Series by Dan Gutman. Mainly because the main character wants to hit a girl in the head with a dodgeball. Or see an asteroid fall on her head. Hell - if it'll make him read, I'm not so concerned.

So his birthday pops up out of nowhere a week after New Year's. It always seems to do that... pop up. Mad close to Christmas as it is and all.

I sitting there the day before thinking that I'll go get him a gift card because he thinks that plastic is "magic money" and likes spending it like he owns the store. And then I think how lame and unprepared I am - THAT'S not creative. That has no twist. You suck as a mom. We do COOL stuff in our house for gifts. Get it together.

And then it came. A mixture of bribery (a.k.a. "incentive"), responsibility and creativity. I was so proud. All my Facebook friends gave me virtual high fives and "daaaaaamns!!!!" I think dozens of people are out right now doing this for their own kids.

Check it:

Three $10 gift cards - one to Target, one to Toys-R-Us and one to Zumiez - all favorites. Three My Weird School Books. I taped the gifts cards (or used the sticky junk on the back of them if I could salvage it) and put them on the back inside cover of each book. The deal BEING that he could only to use the gifts cards AFTER he finished reading the book it was in.

Pure brilliance! I thought it all through... he'd read faster than EVER and would want to read ALL the time to get to those little plastic goodies. I mean, seriously - the Zumiez one was die cut to look like a slice of cheese. How could he NOT want to get the the "cheddah?" Then I thought - wait - he could turn on me and think it was the lamest, most awful trick EVER played on a newly nine year old. He could give me that glaring stare that all mothers dread - the one where their 9 year old looks he loathes you and wants to steal your lunch money. I had to try. I was out of bloody time.

The big day comes. He opens the gifts.

"Thanks for the books ma!" He says excited. (Note: uh... crap?! I could have gotten away with JUST books and he would have been friggin elated?)

So I let him in on the secret and the rule and he eagerly ripped open each book to see what cheese shaped, hologrammed monetary plastic awaited him in each. And he paused, holding the last one open for a fleeting moment. He got this half smile/smirk/deep in thought look on his face and then said to me....

"That's pretty darn cool, mom."

Yessssssss. Success. Pretty darn cool indeed.