And now we take gift ideas very seriously

Several years BC (before child), I actually used to enjoy flipping through the Victoria's Secret catalog. (These days, I usually don't have time. Plus, I'm really not that interested in seeing super skinny people in their underwear. Not that I ever was....) JP and I would sometimes veg by sitting together and looking at our respective magazines and catalogs, pointing out interesting things to each other.

"Flannel pajamas," I said once, going through a Victoria's Secret catalog. "I love flannel pajamas!"

"Really?" JP asked.

"Sure. They're warm and soft, they go allll the way up to your neck and allll the way down to your ankles and wrists," I said, with a wink in my voice. "See?" I said, showing him the catalog's selection of winter-themed flannel.

JP must have been too absorbed in his own reading, because he didn't detect that I was kidding.

So a couple weeks later when I opened my birthday present from him, I died laughing because what he had given me was this:



(Actually, these aren't the same Victoria's Secret polar bear pajamas, but they come very close.)

JP was stunned at my maniacal giggles. "You said you wanted flannel pajamas!"

The man with the driest humor in North America -- the guy who says outrageous things in jest while others think he is being serious -- didn't know I had been kidding about the PJs. JP got it wrong, but it was really my own stupid fault.

I took the pajamas back and got something else. Cute as they were, there just aren't that many opportunities to wear flannel where we live.

The Parent Bloggers Network is asking for tales of gifts gone wrong -- or right -- to highlight a new service called Get In Her Head. It's an uber wish list that also keeps track of sizes and dates, and e-mails you preferences and ideas for gift giving. Perfect for Mother's Day coming up, hint hint . . . .