The Birthday Box Request

This morning Dan forwarded me an e-mail from his family. And the resulting reply was something I wanted to share with everyone.

Here is the original e-mail:

Dan/Jessie:
            We received the invitation to Liam's birthday party.  We thought you enjoyed the baby shower in a box so we wanted to put a birthday party in a box together for Liam.  If this is OK we have lots of questions so you don't end up with lots of things you don't want or need.
            Liam's favorite (the top 3 of each)
               color:
               food:
               toy/object:
               animal
            Sizes for clothes and how many of each to last through at least the summer
               onesies:
               shirt (long or short sleeves):
               pants (long or short):
               socks (tub or cute)
               shoes:
               hats (yes or no) type:
            Does he own any books (type and titles):
            Jessie/Dan's favorite stores to shop for Liam?
            Does he have a toy box or shelves to store things?

Please send the answer to the questions to both of us.  Thanks. Alan and I came up with this.....   

And here is my reply!

Hey Everyone!

You are right, I did love the box of gifts a whole lot! Liam adores that shapes box with all the little blocks in it. He can pick them up and put them back in the box, but not the hole that is their shape yet. I am pretty sure he will catch on to that soon.

Well, lets see. 

I know you all put a lot of thought into this, so I am going to put a lot of thought into my answers. If nothing else, you all can learn some things about Liam!

So, his favorite color:  He is attracted to the bright colors in toys. Reds, yellows, and even pink. In clothing, he looks the best in earth tones. Tans and Browns, mossy greens, muted blues and grays. He does not look good in super bright colors. Not sure why, just something about his skin tone I guess.

His favorite food: He really loves butternut squash, whole peas, cookies (shhhh, I gave him a bite of a home made snickerdoodle last week! He was a happy guy.) applesauce and bananas. I am starting to head away from the mushed up foods and just give him things like well cooked carrots instead of carrot puree, a handful of peas on his highchair tray instead of mushy peas. He is learning to chew and gnaw on his food, to pick it up with his fingers.

Favorite toy/object.  That one is easy. Right now it is the couch! He loves to be bounced on the cushions, to stand on them and lean against the back of the couch and tap at the window. To crawl across the couch and try to make it over the arm rest before one of us can catch him. His bouncer is on the end of the couch and he likes to lean over that arm rest and play with the toys in his bouncer from another angle.   But his blocks are a close second. He really likes those things.

And his favorite animal is a dog. My friend came to visit and brought her Australian Shepherd to come visit and Liam took one look at Bear and started laughing. Bear licked his toes and Liam laughed, Bear sniffed his face and Liam laughed. Even the cats do not prompt as much laughter as a good playful dog.

Now, clothing size to last through the summer...  He has been right on track with the Carter's sizing, he fits into the 9 month stuff now and I imagine that soon he will fit the 12 month stuff. I guess 12-18 month or bigger would work for most clothing. I know Gerber sizes theirs a little differently, in theirs he would fit into an 18 month size right now.  I am a huge fan of the overalls and a onesie look. Or just a onesie and some cute pants. Shirts just tend to ride up on him, but when I go to look at baby clothes there are more and more shirts and less and less onesies for his size! Then again he should be walking in another couple months and without him shuffling all over the floor and crawling across things I bet there will be less shirt riding up.

In summer I suppose he would be in a lot of short sleeved shirts/onesies. I know that the size will still fit him in the fall though and into winter, so any length really is fine.

I like both shorts and long pants, just has to have a lot of give in the waist. There are some we have found that are really stiff and Liam does not like them, I think they dig into his tummy.

As for socks, the ones that can go up really high on his leg have a better chance of actually staying on his feet. Anything else slips off really fast. I keep finding him sitting there with just one sock halfway on and no idea of where the other sock is. I am sure some day I will find a huge stash of baby socks somewhere in the house. All the ones that go missing.

I can not fit his feet into shoes yet. He has fat feet! I have just been putting him in socks when he needs them, and slipper shoes if we decide we need shoes. Ones that are kinda like socks but with harder bottoms. They are stretchy enough on the foot part to accommodate his pudgy little feet. As long as its flexible enough to stretch with his feet... I really have not had much luck finding shoes that fit him. Perhaps as he gets closer to walking his little feet will flatten out a bit.

He actually needs a sun hat soon. One of those floppy ones that you see on kids at the beach. But he does not like most hats, I have one that I made for him that he will tolerate long enough to get from the car into the store before he pulls it off his head.

He has lots of books. Even some with his name in them. "Little Liam Eagle" and some others. He has board books with puppies and kittens, cloth books that crinkle (Squishy Turtle and Friends, which he REALLY likes) a book of bed time stories, Where the Wild Things Are, The Polar Express, some counting books, 10 Little Monkeys...   He likes the ones with real pictures rather than drawings in them. He points to the doggies noses and squeaks over the kitties and touches their faces in the books. I would love to find him one with farm animals in it. I bet he would like the sheep and the horses. And I like the Eric Carle books. I love all the colors in them!

Our favorite stores to shop in... really anywhere. For clothing I love Osh Kosh and Carters and the brand from Babies R' Us, I think it is Koala or Koala Baby, though I am getting a wee bit weary of the repetitive nature of Carters clothing, but it is EVERYWHERE and hard to get away from and he looks cute in most of it!

For toys my only rules are NO SESAME STREET, ESPECIALLY ELMO (his voice just bugs me, its like nails on a chalkboard to me... and muppets give me the creeps) and IF IT MAKES NOISE IT MUST HAVE AN OFF SWITCH (except of course for things that make noise and are human powered like rattles and drums and shakers and stuff like that).  Really that is about it for my hard and unshakable restrictions on toys.  I would rather he was not exposed to character branded stuff just yet, but realistically it is too hard to stop that anymore when you can't even find a table and chair for kids that isn't Dora the Explorer or Barney. The toys without characters on them are few and far between and way too expensive when you can find them. 

I like learning toys. Blocks are the best, and stacking toys, container toys. He likes balls. I don't have many balls yet. And he likes fuzzy stuffed animals. The longer the hair or more interesting the texture of it, the better. He does like toy cars. Or really, anything with wheels or that rolls. He loves things that move and spin.

He does not have a shelf... I suppose I could paint the one that was in his room before we took it down....And I really should find him a small bookshelf.  But he has one of those cloth cubes for a toybox. I fill it with his toys and he pulls it over and makes a mess, then I pick it up and he does it again. He doesn't have a normal toy box though. He has one of those mesh hanging storage things from IKEA. I keep some stuffed animals in there, but most of his toys are downstairs in the living room right now, not too many in his room.

So I think that covers everything! 

Dan handed this project off to me to do, I think because he knew it would end up being like this and you would get all kinds of information. I hope this helps not only with birthday stuff, but also a little insight into Liam and his life.

And I want to make sure you guys have the address.... I DO blog about our family from time to time, less now that Liam is getting older and I spend more time running around after him and less time sitting about.
http://meandmylimabean.blogspot.com

and I post almost EVERY picture I take of him. Even the bad ones and the blurry ones... Because so many of you live far away and do not get to see him grow up other than in pictures.  We are up in the thousands now.
https://profiles.google.com/Auriya#Auriya/photos 
the date on the album is the date they were uploaded.  I do at least one or two a month when the memory card for my camera gets full.

I do post videos on facebook from time to time and I want to upload them to Picasa, I just need to go through them and pick the best ones. Those take up more space and I have to keep enough space for a whole BUNCH of pictures!

I look forward to seeing what is in the Birthday Box! 

Love,
Jessie, Dan and Liam