Pecked by Ducks

Happy Birthday to my one and only brother!! (a wee bit belated)

My brother Jonah is a free spirit. He works on an island in the summers, taking out deep sea fishing charters, landscaping, house painting, and delivering pizzas. But then he spends the rest of the year traveling the world and surfing.

I know, sounds tempting doesn’t it?!

It definitely makes me crave dropping it all on occasion and homeschooling the boys on a beach near Cabo while running a backpacking hostel with thatched roofs…. Or …something like that. Not that I’ve given any thought to it or anything

His footloose and fancy free lifestyle does present a problem to me however when birthdays and Christmas/Hanukkah come around. Not - what to get the guy who has everything - but, what to get the guy who can basically pack up everything he owns into a backpack once a year. <gah!>

So his stocking has boxers, socks, deodorant, treats, toothbrush etc (yes, I play Mom in our family if you are wondering why I am in charge of my brother’s stocking) and his gifts generally run towards Borders or Barnes and Nobel gift cards, fleece, I would consider a good Leatherman or something except you can’t fly with them anymore, surf wax and other practical packables.

One year I made him a zipper pull for his backpack with a photo of my boys on one side and “Not all who wander are lost” on the other. Rather creative if I say so myself, but sadly not a good reusable gift idea.

He is also a huge Bukowski fan. (Did I mention he is an amazing writer? I am always amazed at how he can paint such an achingly bleak, harsh canvas with such simple words.) But this makes it difficult to pick books for him. I have already exhausted this quite helpful “so you like Bukowski, now what do I read” list on Amazon (okay so the list is really called “Bitter F**ks” but hey, this blog is supposed to be family friendly) and I am thinking the Twilight series might not be quite his speed….

So any suggestions?

Anyone?

Bueller?

Anyhoo, a couple of years ago when Quinn was a toddler, it occurred to me that the baby gates in our house kind of looked like jail bars. One day I took a picture of him while he was crying (mad because I took away the safety pin he had found under the refrigerator, not because he was in pain or sad) and holding on to the “bars”.

Later that night I downloaded the pictures and inspiration struck. “This would make a great t-shirt.” I thought. “Jonah could pack that it his backpack…. Hummm… he’s got to keep his street cred… I can’t make him a - World’s Best Uncle - t-shirt that’ll never make the cut…”

And from there the evil plan was formed…

So here is that first year’s Birthday t-shirt

I went with a Che inspired theme. It was a huge hit with the ladies apparently. Who knew!!

The next year Jonah sent us this photo

and I went with a Hawaiian Pin-up theme.

I think I either forgot or missed a year because in this one the boys are 3 and 5.

“Young Guns” just seemed appropriate at the time.

This year, Quinn decided to shave his head and I just couldn’t get the idea of a Buddha shirt out of my head.

so after bath one evening, two white pillow cases, an awesome Sanskrit like font and a

“Siddhartha Gautama” google search later, I had my inspiration for…

“Siddhartha Quinntama”. Now Captain Smarty Pants’ brother also has a birthday in this time frame, and it seemed like Max needed some representation this year, so for TA’s birthday I tried to come up with something for him. The first thing that came to mind was Maximus. So a quick gladiator google search came up with this

and an annoyed Max putting up with my photo shoot ideas came up with this

which resulted in “Maximus”

Happy Birthday Jonah!! I hope it was a good one!

And if anyone has any gifty ideas.. I really could use some ….