One of the ladies in IT — someone I actually hired several years ago, and a very nice person — is about to have her baby, so we had a shower for her yesterday. While everyone else was giving her blankets and onesies and all, I (of course) bought her (and her baby) some board books.
I decided to go for four of them that were particularly special books we had for Katherine — books I’ve essentially memorized through re-reading in her first three years or so.
Sandra Boynton comes first. Any of her stuff is faboo, but I picked out Moo, Baa, La-La-La, The Going-to-Bed Book, and Blue Hat, Green Hat . All of these got worn to cardboardy nubbins in the rereading, I still have them largely memorized, and many of the phrases (“And when the moon is on the rise / They all climb up to exercise!”) are still heard in our household.
(I am filled with nostalgia by seeing Amazon’s reminder at the top of one of those pages: “Instant Order Update for David Hill. You purchased this item on December 13, 2001”)
The other — just to be classic, is Margaret Wise Brown and Clement Hurd’s Goodnight Moon. Can’t go wrong with that one, either.
I would recommend these as a standard package for any baby shower. Any gift you get can be very special, but … well, onesies come and go, mobiles get in the way, blankets are a dime a dozen, diapers get used up. These books will make memories.
I always used to buy Boynton cards for every occasion. My favorite is the card with a hippopotamus, a bird, and two sheep on the front. Inside, it reads “Hippo Birdie Two Ewes.” 🙂
I even had Boynton sheets on my twin bed. Light green, with cows, pigs, and ducks on them.
I still regret not buying The Compleat Turkey when I found it in a Spencer’s gift shop. 🙁
Actually, buy two sets. The first set will make fine teething fodder when the baby is older…as my daughter quickly discovered.
We have a couple of copies of some of the above, just for that reason. 🙂
Ironically, we’re just in the process of cleaning out and disposing (to memorabilia, to other families, or to charity) Katherine’s various board books, such as the above. I’ll be tempted to hold onto these for her hypothetical future kids — though by then the scientists will no doubt have discovered that cardboard is carcinogenic or something. 😛