Help! Need a great gift idea for second baby
I'm an avid reader and work with inner city children so have learned just how important it is to start reading to children at very early ages. So when I found out I was going to be an aunt for the first time, I knew right away that I was going to give my baby niece a library - lots of the classics that I remember my brother and I reading and newer fun ones that the kids I work with enjoy. In many of the books, I wrote notes to my niece - sharing a memory of a book or explaining why I picked it. To top it off, I found the bookcase that my brother and I used when we were little. I painted and decorated it with popular book characters. It turns out the bookcase was actually a big crate that my dad added shelves to. This brought added sentiment because my dad passed away two months before we learned the baby was coming.
With that as the background, I just learned that my brother and his wife are pregnant again! My niece is not quite a year. Thankfully, babies take nine months to get here (afterall I couldn't have bought a library all at once). But ever since I learned of this baby, I have been wracking my brain to come up with something as purposeful, long-lasting, and sentimental as the library. I haven't come up with anything yet.
So I started web searching for creative and lifetime gifts. That's when I came across this site. So . . . fellow aunties, please help me out. If you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them. I don't want the second baby to experience that stereotypical "there's so many pictures of the first baby and none of me" thing. Looking forward to your ideas.