i'm not a regular aunt, i'm a cool aunt*
*In case someone from the future reads this and does not understand the reference, it’s a nod to Amy Poehler’s line in Mean Girls (2004), except I am not actually and never have been an aunt. Please hear me out.
In my country, it’s pretty normal to have multiple godmothers and godfathers. That’s the only reason I could think of why I became a godmother to my baby cousin at age sixteen. After that, I’ve had two more baby cousins with age gaps from mine greater than twenty years. So I was considered less of a cousin and more of an aunt.
Every Christmas since then, it has been my dilemma to think of appropriate gifts for a growing child other than the first thing that comes to my mind — books.
As the textbook nerd among our family, in every celebration, I practically just scream, “You get a book! You get a book!” Heck, I gifted Mowgli, our shih tzu, a book about dogs on his second birthday.
But through the years, I’ve learned to resist becoming my stereotype. I now aim to gift my godchild and baby cousins something fun. I buy them bubble guns and atm machine toy-slash-piggy banks and massive pillows shaped like a hamburger. See? I’m not the boring aunt. I can be the cool aunt.
Next week is my baby sister’s first birthday. We have a twenty-three-year age gap, and I went out to buy her a gift (usually I’d just order online). And boy, it is hard to gift a toddler. Everything that looked interesting requires ages 3 and above. I fought the urge to get her flashcards or baby storybooks.
Ultimately, I got her a squishmallow that looks like a ladybug, because her mom likes to call her that, and it’s her party’s theme. On my way home, I couldn’t resist stopping by BookSale just to look, but I got her a small alphabet baby book. I went home with only one, okay! But I am still thinking whether or not to get her Chris Ferrie’s nuclear physics/quantum mechanics/blockchain/organic chemistry for babies.
P.S. My not-buying-books-as-a-gift rule for kids has an age limit. Once they can read and understand (a secondhand) Harry Potter, I'm going to introduce them to the wonderful world of fiction. And then I'll be the cool aunt who gifts them books for Christmas.