It has been said, and I agree, that gift giving is not my love language. I think it has less to do with the fact that gift giving is unimportant to me and more to do with the fact that, try as I might not to overthink it, I often worry intensely about giving a gift that is substandard or not really appreciated. I worry about it so much that the fear of disappointing someone sometimes results in my solution of not giving anything at all. So, that’s a weird way of saying that it’s possible that deep down, gift giving probably is my love language, but I am illiterate and terrified when it comes to speaking it.
Where grandkids are concerned, it’s kind of double-jeopardy. I love them THIS much, and therefore, want to choose the perfect thing. But their parents’ apartments are small, so what seems like the obvious choice to me–a patio-size sand table or that Lightning McQueen ride-in car, or the marble maze that’s the size of the dining room table–might not be appreciated by Mom and Dad at all.
I have been known to spend hours perusing toy awards websites looking for the perfect age-appropriate gift that will be loved until its “hair has been loved off, and its eyes drop out and it gets loose in the joints and very shabby.” (Please immediately purchase your own copy of The Velveteen Rabbit if you don’t get that literary allusion). It creates a lot of pressure for me, and for my children who, I think, inherently sense how much I want the toy to be the perfect thing. Thus, they have no good way of letting me know if a gift turns out to be a disappointment for them without disappointing me.
This August, with my two oldest granddaughters set to turn age 3 and age 2, my uneasiness about finding the perfect birthday gift started early…sometime in about February to be exact. But the advantage was that I had time to think about what I wanted to do this time, and also stumbled onto a creative limitation. It was this card:
Normally, it might not be considered wise to limit someone’s creativity, but for me, this card was a partial answer to my dilemma. It gave me a theme to work with, and therefore, introduced a “creative fence” where I could corral all of the possible ideas into one manageable space in my brain. With a theme to work with, I could now create some mental space for embellishing the theme, and Grandpa Goff’s Bug Club slowly began to materialize.
Here were the problems I wanted to solve:
- I wanted to choose the “perfect” gift–a toy that could be played with again and again.
- I wanted the gift to be recyclable. If it turned out that playing with it more than once wasn’t a priority, I wanted the gift to at least provide some momentary joy with no expectation that it needed to continue to take up space on the toy shelf when it was no longer useful.
- I wanted to choose something age-appropriate with “award-winning” quality and appeal.
- I wanted to create a play experience that my husband and I could share with my granddaughters, even though they don’t live nearby.
- I wanted not to be restricted to a birthday as the only time I am allowed to do something fun with or for my granddaughters.
- I wanted my granddaughters to have a play experience that was potentially educational but without learning being the end goal. I wanted fun and engagement to be the end goal. In short, I wanted to give the gift of free play.
- I wanted the idea to be scalable–if it was a good idea (and I’m sincerely not sure yet whether or not it is), I wanted to be able to share it with others.
With these goals in mind, here’s the “blueprint” for Grandpa Goff’s Bug Club.
- Bug Club will be an experience box, delivered once every 4-6 weeks that will include a couple of bug-themed experiences for my granddaughters to enjoy with their parents or their grandparents, or all alone.
- Each box will be themed around a specific bug (giving me additional necessary “creative fences”), so the fun for me will be creating a year’s-worth of experiences without all of the pressure of creating them immediately. I can string my play experiences out for as long as I want–or until it no longer feels like play for me.
- I’ll share these experiences with others with the hope that other moms and dads and grandmas and grandpas will “usability test” this idea to see if it is realistic and economically feasible for the average parent or grandparent.
- If, after 6 months, it feels like it is accomplishing what I wanted it to, I’ll consider whether the idea is scalable every year with a new theme.
Granddaughter #2 received her first bug club box about 2 weeks ago. Granddaughter #1 will receive hers in 2 days. I’m SO excited to start playing!
Here’s what comes in the first bug club box:
Feel free to play along with us! I’ll add links here for each of our monthly bug club ideas.
