A "Nothing New" Birthday

We had our first NNY birthday! 

Juju is a great age for an NNY birthday (kindergarten); she's not really clued into this season's must-haves (fingers crossed that the American Girl catalogue doesn't follow us here). A couple of weeks before her birthday we decided to make her a gymnastics beam, which is fully permissible under NNY rules but has a certain "bigness" factor. 

It was fun to make and inexpensive (two parts of the NNY venn) (and possibly environmentally friendly in the sense that it wasn't shipped to our house or assembled/transported 6K miles from China)

She also got much-needed socks (new...socks are an NNY exception) and a pair of second-hand jeans.  Every parent has had the "Berenstain Bears Too Much Birthday" experience where the birthday/Christmas hoopla exceeds the kid's ability to process. We have found that 3ish simple gifts is a sweet spot and avoids the thing where they toss the freshly opened gift to one side so they can tear into the next package. Once we include cards/gifts from grandparents, it feels celebratory but not overboard (at least for ages 0-10. We know things can change as kids grow up). 

For her birthday party, we filled all seven passenger seats of the van (even the front seat, which I  learned afterwards is illegal, even if the airbags turn off...) with giggling girls and went to a neighborhood cafe/bakery, where each girl ordered a fancy treat. Then we headed to the park to play.  The girls had a blast, and nothing new was necessary. 

 Last year I was reading a "minimalism with kids" book and the author said that his family tells everybody, even grandparents, that they won't accept gifts. I get it--if you are trying to live the simplest life possible and someone give you extra stuff that you will just get rid of, well, that's no good for anyone. BUT we're not minimalists and we don't receive THAT many gifts in any case. Maybe I should have said, "no gifts" for Juju's party (as I often have) but I didn't, and she had fun receiving them (and thankfully they were cute but simple). 

Anyway, birthday success! We don't have to worry about another kid one until March :-)

PS. We thought keeping score would keep us from buying used things that we didn't really NEED, but it was a major pain to calculate and had no effect on our habits. So: from here on out, no score, just adherence to the rules.