Those with same sex kids -- close in age - Question for ya

coasterqueen wrote: Ok, Kylie and Megan seem to want everything the other one has. Mainly it's Megan wanting everything Kylie wants. I mean from clothes, to underwear, to toys and books.

Some of the things they are both wanting for Christmas are EXPENSIVE and some are just well, I bet my life that they will play with it for 5 minutes and never again like almost everything we ever buy them.

SO if they both are wanting something, like say a guitar (like a $50 cheapy one) would you buy them both one or just buy one that they SHARE?

They also both want an iPod touch. We thought about getting one and having them share. DH thinks it will work out just fine...I see fights happening 24/7 over it BUT I also don't want to spend $500 to get them both one.

This having kids close in age (even 2.5 years apart) seems to come with all kinds of issues. I'm new to this since my sister and I were 5.5 years apart. Last year (and in past years) we did do joint gifts for some of the things they wanted like the Barbie Doll House and barbie dolls (which they've only played with a handful of times since Christmas last year) and all their dress-up clothes. Those things were a little easier to buy joint and have them share. The guitar and iPod....not so sure.

They are wanting Breyer Horse stuff too, which what I'll do there is buy them both different sets and then they can choose to share or not.

Any ideas or anyone gone through this before?

MommyToAshley replied: As you know, I only have Ashley, but I just wanted to say that I would be hesitant to get an iPod Touch for Megan at her age. Ashley is pretty tech-savy (thanks to DH) and has wanted one since they first came out. She is pretty responsible with her things, but we still waited until this past Christmas to get her one. It's a pretty fragile device even if you have a case on it. That's a lot of money wasted if it is dropped or lost, etc. If you go the iPod route, I would just get Kylie one and tell Megan that she can get one when she is Kylie's age... but that is just my own person opinion. There are apps for Megan's age, maybe Kylie can share it at times, under supervision.

stella6979 replied:
I agree with this. Avery's Aunt wants to get her an ipod touch for Christmas as she is ALWAYS playing with the Iphone but I told her NO! She is only 4 and although she is very careful with her things and is pretty tech-savvy for her age I just don't feel she needs something that expensive. So, I found a v-tech touchscreen called the Mobigo and that is what she will be getting for now. Maybe you could look into that for her?
As for the guitar, you may be able to find them even cheaper than $50 and if so, I would get them each one so they could play together and not have to take turns but that's just me.

Edited cause I wanted to add the link to the mobigo http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=4023470

coasterqueen replied: I'll have to look at the Mobigo for sure. Yeah, I know it's fragile just like the iPhone, and she has our iPhones like 24/7, which is why we are motivated to buy them a touch. My biggest concern is them breaking it, even Kylie. Good thing is with a GOOD case they shouldn't break. They've dropped ours too many times to count and they have not broke. We HAVE broke ours when not in case. My work bought me a new one when mine broke. With Ryan's both times we've sent it off and had fixed for $70, so not too bad compared to $300+ for mine. And I believe all the apps work the same as on iPhone, right? Almost all our apps on our phones are FOR the girls.

A&A'smommy replied: Honestly I would get them one to share because it could actually be beneficial to Megan. Autumn plays with ours ALL the time, and they do fight over (yes they fight already!! ) But they are both really good with it. They make otterboxes for them now and I tell ya ours has been thrown, dropped, and everything else you can imagine. They have a BIG otterbox for it that makes it "waterproof" if you are concerned about that. But otherwise the little one is just fine.

ZandersMama replied: My boys are 2 years, almost to the day, apart. Alot of things I make them share, but they do each have their own nintendo ds's. If I was buying them an ipod, I would either get two, or just tell the baby he would have to wait till he was Zanders age. I kinda feel like they already share so much, they dont really have any toys that are theirs alone. But having one ipod, that would just be constant fights.

coasterqueen replied:
Yeah, ours have their own DS's, but they got them a year apart. So I think what we are going to do (unless something changes) is just get Kylie the iPod touch and tell Megan she can use it when Kylie allows her to, lol, which she will at times.

The weird thing is they have our old iPod but rarely use it, they just use our phones which we have playlists on there for them and they use the apps on there. I want them to NOT use our phones anymore and just use the iPod. The old ipod is a bit cumbersome compared to the new ones, though.

MommyToAshley replied:
Some are iPhone only and some are both. I believe most of the kid's apps I've seen work on the iTouch too. And, yes, they work the same way. And, of course, they're good for the kid's music too. You can even put movies on it for long car trips, etc.

luvbug00 replied: ITA to get one to share.
Mya got her touch this year and I really was not for it. I dont have one so why should she have better then what i have without earning it? So i was livid when she got one. I did end up taking it because her dads family let her get apps i dont approve of. wow i dragged that out.
anyway point being get one to share

MommyToAshley replied:
That's one thing you have to be careful of too, good point. Rod has it set up so that Ashley can't accept chats from strangers, the only person she can text is one of us and her grandmother. She actually chats via text with grandma quite a bit. He also has it set up that when it syncs, it only downloads aps in her folder and there is a password to purchase or add new aps so she can't do it on her own. And, we just don't let her use the browser because there really isn't a good net nanny for the iTouch that we like.

Boo&BugsMom replied: Karen, what about just getting them both a standard MP3 player? You can find a decent one around Christmas time for around $35. I know they aren't as cool as an iPod, however, if you go out and get something 'similar' for cheaper, then you wont be upset if they either break it, or don't use it that much. We got Tanner one last year for Christmas, and up until he dropped it in water, it worked perfectly and he used it ALL the time. He could also download pics and videos onto it, along with the music. I think his was a Sony.

Oh, and the guitars I would buy them each their own. Tanner and Aiden use to fight over Tanner's for the longest time until it finally broke. Ugh. Certainly worth the extra $$ for a little more peace and quiet. lol

MommyToAshley replied:
Are you getting them real guitars or play guitars? If real, are you getting them lessons too? Ashley really wants to play the guitar but I want her to get another year of piano under her belt before she starts a new instrument. But, you'll have to let me know how it goes, maybe I will reconsider.

Boo&BugsMom replied:
I'm not getting them new ones, but the one they had was a play guitar. Although it was a play guitar though, you can buy real strings (which I did) and still tune it and play it like a regular guitar. So, it was 'real', but the strings it came with were plastic (no good). Luckily I know about a dozen or more people who were able to tune it, etc. for me. For $25 they got a play guitar that played like a real one by just replacing it with real strings. If it wasn't broken (Aiden got a hold of it and lost a couple tuning knobs), it could have easily been used for lessons.

coasterqueen replied:
I want the iPod because she can download apps to play too, so it gets rid of the Nintendo DS. Her DS broke and at first she wanted to get a new DSiXL, but we convinced her she could play the game(s) she is already playing on the DS, now on the iPod, plus she can play all the games she plays on our phones on the iPod, too. The only game she has ever really played on the DS was Cooking Mama and she plays that on my iPhone now. She usually plays math games, word search, checkers, stuff like that on my phone.

So to answer your question the regular mp3 just won't work for what we want out of the iPod. If we trade in our old iPod and get her an iPod touch (not the newest generation one, which she doesn't really need anyways) we won't be spending a whole lot of money. But if I buy two, that would be a difference story

I think we can make it work Megan having to wait, but we may do the two guitars like you suggested. Ryan's other suggestion is buy one guitar, and buy the other drums, or something. They both want both. Our school offers string instrument lessons starting in 3rd grade and Kylie has already told her music teacher she plans to sign up. Piano just isn't enough for her. She has become such a fast learner with piano that her piano teacher thinks she can pick up a strings instrument next year too and be fine. So I definitely want to get Kylie a guitar and I like the idea about putting the real strings on there.

coasterqueen replied:
Yeah, we already use our old iPod for that exact thing - movies for long car rides. I hook it right up to the DVD player in the van or tahoe and they watch them right on the regular screen. Love that feature!

julesmom replied: Last year, Best Buy had a deal where you'd get $100 gift card when you bought one Ipod Touch. I did that, then took that gc and bought a 2nd Ipod touch. It was a deal that way.

My oldest, same sex, are 21mths apart. When they were younger we bought different gifts, but now that they are middle school, they are into the same things and will probably get the same gifts for xmas.

Can you get a used ipod touch on ebay for her?