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My granddaughter turns five next month. I have been a grandmother for fourteen years now, across six grandchildren, and I will tell you the truth — I have run completely out of ideas. The toys all blur together. The books they already have. The clothes they outgrow before they wear them twice. Every birthday I find myself wandering Target with a gift card in my hand wondering when exactly gift-giving became this hard. This year I tried something completely different. My daughter sent me a folder of photos from the past year — her birthday last year, her dance recital, the day at the zoo, the one of her and her little brother in matching pyjamas on Christmas morning. I picked twelve of my favorites. I uploaded them to a website my friend had told me about. A week later, a real printed colouring book arrived at my house. Twelve pages. Every single one was her — her face, her family, her life. I wrapped it. I gave it to her at her party. She opened it and her mouth fell open the way little kids' mouths do when something is genuinely surprising. She turned to her mother and said, "Mommy, it's ME." She showed it to every adult at the party. She made her father read every page out loud like it was a storybook. She took it home and slept with it next to her bed. Her mother called me three weeks later. "She still won't stop colouring it. She tells everyone Grandma made her a book about her life." I am buying one for every grandchild's birthday from now on. There is nothing else I could give them that comes close.