Jellybeen

You seriously don't have to spend that much to get a great toy he'll treasure. We did that shit and now with our boys being 3 and 6, we're fucking overrun with toys.. in the house, in the shed, in storage... and there's nothing left to get them.

With little kids you have to remember that YOU will always be their favorite toy. Time with you is more important than anything.

Other things a little kid would really like...
- a soft, fluffy photo holder with pictures of you and mommy and any relatives that he sees a lot (I think they have them at toys r us), the kid can even gnaw on the thing it's so soft, and the pictures slide into clear flexible plastic windows. Very hard to get the pictures out but they love to look at the pics and show them to everyone.

- something that looks JUST LIKE something you have and use a lot. Like the phone on your desk. If it looks just like yours, he'll sit babbling into it for hours acting like he's Daddy. Put it next to his play keyboard you've already got and he'll feel like quite the little man.

- a big roll of butcher paper (white that they wrap meat in) and a box of washable markers and crayons. Inexpensive, inspires his creativity and it's educational... plus it gives him hours of fun. Lay down a 4' sheet and stick it to the floor with masking tape, and let him go to town scribbling on that bad boy!
(Note that I said WASHABLE!! hehe)

- The best gift would be picture books with good stories. I really recommend the set of books they use for the Five In A Row curriculum ( www.fiveinarow.com ), you can just get the list and buy the books yourself or buy them in a package there on the site. They are *excellent* books and it would give you some quality time to sit and read to him every night. Be sure to put the books up high when you're not reading though, at 1 he's liable to shred them if he can get his hands on them.

Reading to him every night faithfully will do three things - it'll give you a way to decompress from the day, it will give the two of you some invaluable together time, and it will help him formulate his vocabulary. If he's speaking at all now, you'll be amazed at how well he starts speaking after you've been reading to him every night for a couple of weeks. Plus it gets him interested in books, which is always good. Trust me, push books over tv/games/xbox at every opportunity you can, as early as you can.

- Use your graphics program and printer to make up and print out some "vouchers" for things that just the two of you do together. Make it as graphical as possible so he understands it. On each voucher, put a small pic of you on one side and a pic of him on the other, with the promised reward in the middle and a simple word under it. Like a picture of a tiger or panda with the word "ZOO" under it in big letters (he won't read it now but he'll be able to recognize the pics and it'll help you to remember what each was for 3 months from now)... a picture of a fish for the aquarium, a picture of a park, a picture of an ice cream cone (go to dairy queen together)... all kinds of things.
Take one day out of each week and go through the vouchers with him, asking him where he wants to go - then go there!! Just you and him. He'll soon learn that when the voucher book comes out it means you and he are going to do something really fun and special.
Do 52 vouchers to cover a whole year, make a nice cover for it, and staple 'em together. Be sure to include things that you can do on rainy/cold days, too.

It's not how much the gift costs, it's what the gift GIVES, and your time is the best thing you can give him no matter how old he gets to be.