All I Want For Christmas...

As you can tell, Will already has his 2 front teeth. The bottom ones appeared in September. His top 2 front teeth grew in last week. A fun time was had by all. If there is anything worse than "Snakes on a Plane," it is "Baby Growing Teeth on a Plane."

In any case, Will doesn't really need any new toys. He has a bunch. But, if you feel compelled to buy toys, he is very excited about new things for minutes at a time. Here are some ideas:

• GeoTrax Train - Currently he only has the basic set and the Rainbow Bridge.
• Clothes - The boy keeps growing. He can wear anything that is 12 months and up.
  
• Bibs - The boy keeps eating. Perhaps this has something to do with the growing.
• Shoes - While he can't walk quite yet, he does a lot of standing. Socks are too slippery on some floor surfaces. Plus, every time I put socks on him, he sees it as a challenge to beat his previous record of amount of time it takes to remove the socks and chew on them.
• Leap Frog stuff - He has the Learning Playground and loves it.
  
• Drum - Will likes to hit surfaces to make sounds.
• Wooden Toys - We love these because they are really neat. In addition to blocks, Will's walker is wooden, he has a wooden fish from Oregon, and his high chair is made of wood. It's our decorating theme. Instead of bright colorful plastic, we are going with natural and painted wood. We hope to build Will a neat wooden toy box sometime soon.
• Baby proofing items. Ok, these will actually prevent Will from playing with stuff, but trust us, he will appreciate it later when he doesn't slam his fingers in the low kitchen drawer again. We currently don't have a single baby-proofing item. I'm sure we will get some soon.
  
• College Savings - Yes, you can contribute to Will's future education. It's the gift that says, "No, I didn't get you a toy. But you could buy a Calculus book... in the year 2023!" Act now while Will still doesn't realize what exactly is going on with all of the tangible presents.
  
• Large hooded bath towel or robe - Will is getting big, did I mention that? His current towels are inadequate. We must keep the damp baby warm after bathtime.
  
• More ideas to be added later to this post as I think of them.
  

Here are some anti-ideas. That is, Will has tons of some items, and while he enjoys them, doesn't need any extras.

• Stuffed Animals - He has many cuddly animals including a lamb, a llama, and a puppy. He has interesting animals such as a Dr. Seuss sneetch. And, he has an entire giant plastic tub of animals coming from Virginia that Dan and I have collected over the years.
• Blankets - Will has lots of neat blankets that he enjoys snuggling with. However, we are good for now since the house doesn't get that cold during the Southern California winters.
• Hiking Boots - Oddly, Will has 2 pairs of hiking boots. They are a little big, but will fit his feet soon.
• Blocks - We bought Will a walker that also had storage for 40 blocks. Additionally, we are getting a bunch more blocks that Dan used to play with when he was a kid. Ok, maybe you can't have too many blocks. Maybe this is in the wrong category.

So if you happen to send Will a present, make sure that it comes in a cool box. Will still thinks boxes are "golden brown and delicious." Wrapping paper is optional, but if you do send a wrapped present, we will put it under our tree and fight daily to prevent Will from eating it before Christmas. We hope to get a tree in 2 weeks when our tree stand and ornaments arrive from Virginia. Until then, here is a picture of us in front of the Hines' tree with our wiggly baby.

Wiggly Will - Concentrating on trying to escape and eat the tree