Image(s) courtesy VintageHolidayCrafts.com
“This here’s a jam for all the fellas.” It is Valentine’s day. You’re married, so you already have an anniversary that takes a bit more precedence. You now have several children, so the brand of thoughtfulness on this holiday has changed. To top it all off, she is very pregnant again. You might have searched for some ideas online already and arrived at terrible lists of stupid coupons that nobody wants.
We are two days away from Valentine’s day, so you have surpassed the deadline for letting some ETSY artisan do the thoughtfulness for you. Plus, like I said, save the REALLY thoughtful stuff for your wedding anniversary and use one of these adequate gift ideas from my list. My credentials are that I am a third time pregnant woman, and these are things that I would want.
1. Be a Nap Goalie
If your wife is very pregnant, then she probably sleeps better on couches and in chairs than she does in your bed at night. This means she does some involuntary napping when she is on the couch or in chairs. Some of those naps are the best, but when you reach the perfect level of relaxation a tiny person is liable to fly out of nowhere with all of the knees,elbows, toys and books they have to wake her up. If you stand guard as the nap goalie on Valentine’s day and make sure that no one jumps on your wife for the duration of her likely involuntary nap, you have delivered the best Valentine’s day gift to your wife. Your unborn child also thanks you. The giant belly is usually the target of these attacks.
2. A Body Pillow
If you sense a theme here, you’re right. It is sleeping. If you are the kind of people who buy stuff, then she already has one of these. If you are like me, you just gathered pillows from around the house for all of the previous pregnancies. Now you have given birth to enough real people who need pillows that this surplus no longer exists. There are probably a lot of pun options that go with body, but I won’t think of any for you because it’s your gift and eew puns.
3. A scheduled babysitter for the near future
Many of the lists you will find of gift ideas on the internet involve pre-planned dates. That’s great if you have no kids and can just do them whenever, but if you have a lot of kids and they are all in diapers, date ideas are worthless. Put an actual babysitter or crew of them on the books for an upcoming night that is not Valentine’s day. Why would you want to drag her out on Valentine’s Day? There are so many people! That is exhausting. It will make her want to sleep.
4. Breakfast
My husband is already the breakfast cook, but that doesn’t make it any less of a gift every time he cooks breakfast for us. Cook breakfast for the family. That gift counts for everyone.
5. Replacement Shoes
Her feet might be looking… hotdogish. I have escaped this fate the last two pregnancies, but on my first go-round, my feet were so fat that fat is not an adequate word for it. A nice new pair of sandals, flip-flops or even some shoes she already has in the next size up would be nice. This might insult a first timer or a wildly sensitive creature, but if you are still reading, we have established that you have been married a while and this isn’t her first rodeo. This small gesture shows you are paying attention and want her to be comfortable. At least that’s how I would take it, but I’m mostly not crazy.
6. Something Nice for Work
If she still works, she has to spend a lot of her waking hours there. Consider something she can use at work that will make her day better. A fancy pen, new ID badge holder, giant bag of vending machine quarters, a small tube of lotion, hand sanitizer, floss (I always wish I had floss at work, but you know your audience better than me.)
7. Little Wine Bottles
If your wife has been pregnant many times within a short span she has likely given up the fear mongering and puritanical rules of pregnancy that most first timers reasonably abide by. This means she wants to drink a glass of wine. This also means that she will not feel right about opening a bottle of good wine knowing that much of it will go to waste. Buy her some of those little bottles that non-pregnant wine drinkers might be too snobby for. They are making better and better stuff these days, either that or I’ve been pregnant for so long that my standards have diminished.
8.Some Way to Binge Watch a TV series
There are many ways to do that nowadays. She will likely nap too much to get very far through it and it can be saved for when she really needs it, after that baby is born and she is nursing all the time.
9. Suspenders
Now hear me out on this one. It might sound like a gag gift, but I’m rather serious. If your baby got back, she’s lucky. If her bum is unimpressive, and she is repeatedly pregnant, she is likely having trouble keeping her underwear from rolling down and falling off. I haven’t tried it yet, but I do think they should start selling suspenders in maternity stores and maternity sections of stores. I would only go this route if you have actually heard or witnessed your wife complain that her underwear is falling off. I once almost just gave up and abandoned mine at a racetrack concert, but I had promises to keep (read as fajitas to carry) and many miles to go before I sleep.
10. A Card
We are hormonal and weepy and it won’t take much of an inscription to make us feel grateful and loved. So write a sentence or two in that card and you are golden.
I hope this helped. You can mix and match. Just remember, thoughtfulness is the new romantic at this stage in your marriage and life. Something thoughtful is something that will improve your love’s day in some way and that does not have to be traditionally romantic.
ScrappyTeacherMom.com 