Baby Gifts

*** Update: After you buy anything from our Target registry, it might be a good idea to go online and make sure it's been marked as "fulfilled." If it hasn't, you can either call 1-800-888-9333 and have the Target registries people mark it, or get a hold of Gion, Rachel, or myself, and we can mark it online. Sorry for the inconvenience! ***

The ladies who are organizing our shower thought it would be a good idea if I posted a note about our baby gift preferences, for those of you who are curious/stumped as to what to get us.

First of all, we are registered at Target, and there are a bunch of great things on the registry. We did a lot of research to choose the items on the list. Our "big" items are there (stroller, car seat, crib-set, etc.). Most everything is available online, and not quite half the items can also be found in stores.

We're not decorating a nursery right now, but when we do, we plan to go with a space theme (i.e. rockets, stars, planets, robots, aliens, UFOs, etc.), because we're nerds, and we love that kind of stuff! We were so excited to find a cute, reasonably priced rocket-themed crib-set at Target! So we have nearly all the items in the set on the registry. But if you find space-themed nursery stuff anywhere else, we are sure to love it, no need to be matchy-matchy with the bedroom set.


Here are a few things to keep in mind for non-registry items:

Although our crib set has quite a bit of blue in it, we don't want to be overwhelmed by blue. Just because he's a boy doesn't mean we plan to dress him in blue 24/7. We love green, brown, orange, yellow, every color really. And we would love to use many things for our next baby, be it a boy or a girl.

We won't be giving the baby any toys of questionable origin or toxicity. For example, a plastic toy from China that could have lead or cadmium paint . . . not desirable. We like wooden toys, cloth toys, some toys are even made with natural rubber and food-grade dye. Fun!

We would prefer clothes and toys that have labels that say things like: Made in the USA, 100% cotton, sustainable (like bamboo), and/or organic.

I'm planning to breastfeed. We also hope to use cloth diapers. If cloth diapering doesn't work when we're in San Jose, we'll try it again when we move to Atascadero.

We'll be using a mini co-sleeper (small crib that attaches to the side of adult bed) for the first few months. We have a larger crib for later. So we'll be able to use mini co-sleeper sheets at first and regular crib sheets later.

We love books. Board books, older kid books. Our child will probably have a big library.

We love hand-me-downs! Clothes, gear, anything! Second-hand products are very green. But please check with us or with Phil and Gion about what we've already been handed-down before picking anything up, or bringing anything over. (;


Here are some possible retail sites to find good baby stuff:

kahunakidspasorobles.com (place in San Luis Obispo County [Paso] with cuuuuute eco-friendly stuff! wooden and cloth toys, bamboo clothes, etc. excellent!)

store.tinytots.com (retailer local to Brian and me, also the home of our local cloth diapering service!)

babyworks.com (retailer my cousin Adina used to work for and strongly stands behind)

thinkgeek.com/geek-kids (this site has some awesome/funny stuff, great for our space-themed nursery . . . yeah we're nerds)

etsy.com (online marketplace for handmade goods. It takes some searching, but there's some amazing stuff on here) Some cute things I've seen are from Eco Ayris (wooden teethers and blocks), Leen The Graphics Queen (cute rocket growth chart!), John W Golden (fantastic space and robot-themed prints), and Kiddy Couture (fabric play food)

(prints by John W Golden)

Thanks!

Love, Christina and Brian