Smart Ass

For the last few holidays, I've been letting Ruthie pick out gifts for certain relatives. This resulted in this get-up for Benny for his birthday, which was the day before Halloween:


In addition to the hilarity of the gifts she picks, it also gets me off the hook. It's hard enough picking out presents for the eleventy bajillion poeple we shop for every Christmas, so I may as well delegate. Plus, it gets her involved and makes it way more fun for her when gift-giving time rolls around.
Last Christmas, when she was 2 1/2, she wanted to get everyone a ball. So Benny got a glow-in-the-dark basketball, Helen ,who was ten months old, got a mini NBA ball, and my mom got a set of pink golf balls. The only exception was my sister, who got monkey-print pajama pants. Everyone was thrilled. This year, Ruthie and I have gotten an early start. Grandma is getting a sorority murder novel, and Aunt Ali is getting a Pirates of the Caribbean wall calendar, (Did I mention that Aunt Ali is 35 and currently in Divinity School?) But so far, the present she picked out for Daddy takes the cake. She originally picked out a book for him that was a trilogy of horror/sci-fi stuff that I knew he would never read, and probably not appreciate all that much, and t was $20. To much for a joke that was only marginally funny. Then she decided he needed a book about lions. This decision was fueled by the lion display in the window of the Asian gift shop in our local mall. Everyone should use this tactic when picking out gifts. We peruse the bookstore, but locating a book specifically about lions was way too much for me and the girls on this particularly exhausting Friday. AS we continued to make our way through the bookstore, we wandered by the games. "Would you like to get Daddy a game, honey?" I inquired. "Yes mommy, I want to get Daddy a game. I want to get him THIS game." And she picks up this:
Now, the price was slightly higher than the sci-fi horror trilogy, but I thought maybe this would get played, and the thought of Benny opening a gift from his sweet little three-year old, only to find this, is priceless. So here we have it. Ruthie's Christmas gift to her Daddy. The game that boasts: "even if you are a "Dumb Ass", you can win!"