Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Mother's Ring

I don't know if I was told, or if I read it somewhere, or if I just made it up, that the father of a new baby is supposed to get the new mother a gift after she delivers the baby. I guess the gift is kind of like a "There you go. Good job. Atta girl." type of gift. Somewhat like a trophy. (Now that I think about it, a trophy would have been an awesome gift. I wonder if they make delivery/labor trophies. I may be on to something. A gold plated women in stir-ups on top of a marble base with a shiny etched plate that reads "#1 Pusher." I need to remember this.) I decided to go with a Mother's Ring.

The typical Mother's Ring has the birthstone of the child in it. I wanted to have the ring to be able to give it to Lauren while she was in the hospital. Maxfield's due date was February 29th. February's stone is Amethyst. There was a good chance Max would be born in March, which the stone is Aquamarine. I wanted to be prepared so I went to the jeweler and ordered two rings with the understanding that I would be returning the one I did not need. Max was born in March.

Wyatt was due mid June and I felt fairly safe to order a ring with an Alexandrite stone. We were in Florida at the time and I went to one of those jewelry stores in the mall. I explained to the young girl that I was looking for a Mother's Ring with Alexandrite. She showed me all kinds of fancy settings with Diamond encrusted this and that and super duper brushed gold with a Illudium pu-36 explosive space modulator. The cost of the rings she showed me were more than what I paid for for Lauren's engagement ring.

"I would like a plain ring setting." I said.

"You want a plane ring?"

"Yes. Just plain. With a stone on top."

"I am not sure we have something like that." she said.

"I do not want something too gaudy. My wife would not like that. Nothing too complicated. Just a plain ring."

"I could see if they could make a custom plane ring for you." She was being very helpful.

"I don't get it. Why would a plain ring be custom?" I asked.

"Well we do not carry anything that looks like a plane."

"What?"

"You want a ring that looks like a plane, right?"

"No. I want a PLAIN ring. Plain as in simple. As in not too much bells and whistles."

"I am sorry but we do not have any bell rings either."

This conversation went in circles until I grabbed a catalog and showed the girl a picture of what I wanted.

Lauren is not one for too much jewelery. With the third kid coming she did not really want a third ring. It would be too much on her fingers. I needed to find a ring where I could have all three stones in the setting. Around the time we were discussing the ring I received an email from this company . The email was not spam. Apparently someone there reads my blog and knew I would be in the need of a Mother's ring soon. We exchanged some emails back and forth and their website makes it easy to build any type of multi-stoned ring.

I added the link to my side bar so I could find them when it came time for me to actually order the ring, which, will be soon. I am having fun mixing and matching various stones and settings, although they do not have an airplane style ring. The new baby is due January 4th. Lauren could go early so I am not going to order the ring until I know for sure what stone I need to get. Try it. Mother's Rings.

Now I am going to have to google search birthing trophies.

31 comments:

Anonymous said...

You don't have to google! SoozieQ is the trophy QUEEN. She will hook you up, no doubt.

Anonymous said...

Susie beat me to it. SoozieQ is ABSOLUTELY the trophy queen. Shoot her an email. Or maybe she'll see all these recommendations and just start working on it.

Buck Rogers said...

The gift is called a push gift. A gift for pushing. My wife a C-section and I still had to get her one. What a rip off. I got a necklace with our daughter's birth stone

Anonymous said...

my sister and I got a ring like this for my mother's 50th birthday. Since my mother and sister have the same birthstone, we put an opal in the middle and my birthstone, the garnet on either side.

Do you only have to give these things when they first have kids?

Anonymous said...

I got a wonderful mothers ring with april, july and june stones, and ribbons between each, with their names on the ribbon :)

Its a great gift, for sure!

Anonymous said...

gold "ribbons" that is. . . not actual *ribbons* LOL

Julie Mast said...

I think the term you're looking for is "push present". Nice ring to it, huh?? =) I never did get one of those...something about getting pregnant means one or both of us loses a job! =) No more kids for us...I'm not jinxing it! =)

eclectic said...

Third pimp for SoozieQ. Our boys and their sports teams can testify to the quality of her trophies, but none of the boys have trophies for labor or delivery, that I know of. Still...

Bogart said...

Would the trophy be anatomically correct? Would the baby be crowning?

Serious questions for serious mental pictures.

Fulton Quads said...

Ok, I just had to comment! I had four babies, all at once & I just got a kiss on the cheek! Man, I wish I knew about this tradition when my little buggers were born! However for my 1st Mother's day he did give me a beautiful pendant with 5 diamonds on it,representing each child. I guess it paid off in the end! (= Cathy

Anonymous said...

Well we don't have an actual trophy with a woman in stirrups or anything, but they do make a crawling baby trophy topper. But I'm thinking that Lauren would appreciate a ring a bit more than say something like this ;-)

Anonymous said...

Push gift, huh? That is news to me!
My dh learned after the first one that he had better show up with roses. As far as a mother gift, I always thought those were for mother's day or a really special birthday.
SoozieQ's trophy made me smile.

Anonymous said...

Aren't ice chips enough?

Patience said...

I might have your baby if you could find a plane ring. With a large diamond please.

Anonymous said...

SoozieQ- I love your trophy!! I totally want one.

And Bogart.... thanks *so much* for putting the vision in everyone's heads of me in stirrups with the head crowning.... why don't we just go ahead and have the placenta bronzed now...

Anonymous said...

Bronzed placent... HAHA! Well, you can actually have it preserved with herbs & oils & such, kind of like mummification. ;o)

On a side note, what would the push award look like for those of us who had waterbirths???? Hmmm....

WILLIAM said...

Uhmm Gigglepotamus...please refrain from using the word placenta on my blog....

Alis...it would look like a snorkle.

James (SeattleDad) said...

I got away without buying one. She deserved one, but sometimes it helps not to have enough cash.

Karen said...

My friends had a baby last New YEar's day. I had the priviledge of being present when Lily was born. Lily's father had a present for her mother - they called it The Push - which I thought was just the funniest thing. It was a beautiful ring. I never heard of this before, and I am not a young thing!!

Jason Roth said...

Crap Crap Crap. I didn't think about the whole buying a gift after delivery thing. I hope my wife doesn't read this. I'll be up a freakin' creek without a paddle.

I like the trophy idea. How graphic were you thinking? Any crowning?

JP said...

After watching the birthing process on the Discovery channel, I think I'd buy my wife a car if she delivered something that big out of her...

Although I would have liked to see the plane ring. Wonder what kind of plane they would've made?

jaacs said...

My friend calls it a 'push gift'. I had never heard of this until after I was pregnant with our second. Then I inquired why I had not received anything. You know what my smart-alecking husband said?:

Well, you didn't push. You had a c-section.

!!

Plus, our first was born on our first wedding anniversary so I claimed her as my present to him. HA!

I love this idea, though. I was going to wait until we were done having kiddos to get a ring to represent everyone...but I do like the kind that you can keep adding onto.

You are a thoughtful man.:)

MrsDoF said...

SoozieQ sure did make a fine trophy for a mommy. Great picture!

I recently sold my 20 year old 'mother ring' to a jeweler for enough cash to purchase a certain size peg loom for knitting hats.

I'm having much more fun now than when the ring was sitting in my jewelry box.

A few years ago, my husband put an ad in the classifieds for a wood plane.
A girl called asking all about wingspan and size of batteries for the remote control.
She wanted to buy it for her fella.

It took me a minute to realize she thought it was a model airplane that flies.

Then it took even longer to explain to her that the item was a tool for a craftsman, for smoothing the edges of a table or somesuch.

She said she felt so dumb--she had no idea that wood furniture could be made by hand.

By the time I put the phone back in its cradle, I was feeling really old.

Three boys and two miscarriages is my own OB-Gyne history.

Last kid earns his Bachelor's degree next week Yippee!

MrsDoF

joanna said...

It's funny because I just read this post (address here:)

http://welcometomysoapbox.blogspot.com/2008/12/push-present.html

Lauren should probably ask for something really of the financial equivalent of carrying a child for 9 months and then PUSHING it out of her! What would that be? A boat? A 72" plasma TV (do they come in that size?) The Victoria's Secret diamond bra?

Anonymous said...

I think Joanna is onto something...



PLACENTA, PLACENTA, PLACENTA!!!

Salt H2O said...

William-
Don't call it a push present and you're golden.

Buying your wife something because you love and appreciate her is a completely different concept than buying a woman a present because she gave birth to your child.

Merrily Down the Stream said...

Can we talk some more about the half-wit sales girl please?!?!?! THAT is amazing.

Also the word verification I am about to type in looks suspiciously like dingleberries mixed up a bit.

mamabrown said...

What a sweet man you are! Lauren will be pleased...you get extra points for being such a nice guy for appreciating the hard, hard work that labor and delivery is and the ring is such a nice reminder of that special intimacy that only comes with the birth of your babies.

Anonymous said...

Speaking of trophies, I think you should get one for being a kickass husband. I think it should have a plane on it because the story of the stupid salesgirl cracked me up.

Anonymous said...

What is this ring stuff? I didn't receive a mother's ring till my youngest of 9 was about 15 years old! Trophies? This generation of Moms is SPOILED! In the old days it was enough that your baby was healthy and the Baby was the Trophy; A living, breathing showcase of a miracle and labor of love. I'd rather have a baby than a ring anyday! A ring can't write a blog, or have such a following of readers. A ring can't be the Lawn Whisperer. A ring can't mow my lawn or shovel my snow. A ring can't bring home the Christmas Tree, a ring can't help me with finances. A ring can't help me with tax and law situations. A ring can't help me with electrical or construction problems. A ring can't call me everyday to make sure I'm okay. Give me a baby anyday! They are worth more than gold and rubies and diamonds. They are LOVE! They grow up and are such wonderful human beings. Ring, Sming... THINK people!

Anonymous said...

I agree with mom. The baby is the gift.
3 gifts my wife gets to play with every day even if she doesn't want to.

I did however get C a gift each baby and always bought the outfit for the baby to wear in the first picture.