On Saturday, I had such great fun going to my neice's 3rd birthday. It was everything a 3rd birthday should be, complete with a Disney princess cake, a dance party extravaganza, and a few dozen melt downs from exhausted, sugared up kids who didn't want to share or play nice. I had to feel a little bad for my neice, since it was her birthday but the real star of the day was her 10 month old brother, who crawled around, smiling his big, dimply smile, and stealing every piece of glittery princess dress up paraphenalia he could get his little hands on.

As usual, I took the prize for the gift that all the adults went absolutely wild for, but the kids couldn't care less about.

My first encounter with this unique talent of mine was 5 years ago, when I was online shopping for a Christmas present for my (then) 3 year old neice. (Not the same one who turned 3 last weekend. That would make no sense. This is her older cousin, one of the only party guests who did not have a temper tantrum. This includes adults) Anyway, I was putting together a big box of circus themed toys, as she was obsessed with Cirque du Soleil at the time. I came across what I considered to be the gem of the entire batch: a lycra tube of sorts that you velco'd yourself inside of to form a human blob. (Much like when you climbed in your sleeping bad head first at slumber parties and walked around, bumping into things.) Only with the spandex version, you could actually see where you were going, and you wouldn't suffocate in there.

When it arrived in the mail (I mailed everything to myself and assembled it in a cool circus-y box) I had several work friends over, for some reason. We all had a rip roaring good time squeezing ourselves into a lycra tube designed for children under the age of 5 and rolling around my living room. When my niece opened the package, both my brothers and sisters-in-law pretty much did the same thing. Even my dad got into the act.

Unfortunately, the KID didn't like it nearly as much as the adults did. As a matter of fact, she was so freaked out by the concept of the lycra-blob-tube that she actually gave it back to me a week later! Oh well.

Fast forward a couple years, and I was at a party for my then-boyfriend's nephew who was turning 2. I got him one of those horses' head on a stick thingees that you ride around the house on. If you pushed a button on the ear, it played the theme to the Lone Ranger. Again, a party where all the adults are running around the house riding a tiny hobby horse and yelling "Hey-ho Silver, AWAY!!!"Again, a youngster who glances at the toy briefly and then tosses it aside, never to touch it again. (Well, at least his parents got to play with it)

You would think I would be used to it by now. But, sadly, I am not. When my neice opened her new DVD's (Free to Be You and Me, Really Rosie, and The Best of the Electric Company) she looked at them with a confused look and gently placed them inside Cindarella's castle. They were immediately scooped up by her uncle who insisted on popping the Electic Company into the DVD player and watching it right there and then.

Oh well. I still have 2 months to pick the perfect present for her brother before he turns 1.