For the GFY Members who are parents!

He's not going to remember it, dont get him shit

You can get away with not buying him anything. He won't know

a keyboard

never mind, I missed it. .. . well, when my kids were 1 I got them Playschool computers and stuff like that

He loves banging on Keyboards!

Infact I have a spare one for him already! He loves Windows Media player's Visual effects and Slamming on the keyboard :-)

i have a 5 year old...they love Baby Einstein series videos....trust me he will be hooked!

He won't but the Video Cameras and the massive ammounts of people at the birthday party will :-x

I got him a Lilo n Stitch cake! It's so cool has a surfboard and everything :-x

Same here... also within 6 months he will be hooked on "The Wiggles" so get him a couple of those tapes.

A one year old like to play with something that ha gets a reaction out of. My daughter loved an organ with keys thet made different music. They were sounds like a trumpet, drum roll, flute, guitar, etc. she would play for hours with it. Just get one with a volume control.

I just hope he doen't like Barney, or Veggie tales..even worse the telatubbys

I was thinking about buying every single Land before time Video..

You can take him out for a whole day of fun. Maybe to his favorite theme park, go to the arcade, eat in his fav. resto, stuff like that. Be sure to take lots of pictures for a day to remember.

at 1?

get him a little kids musical keyboard type thing, with lights and sounds

www.toysrus.com

might I suggest that videos are about the worst thing you can give a kid. . . . you are only encouraging them that TV is good . . . . it isn't

Excelent idea!

Get him some building blocks so he can practice
his psycho motor skills.

Something big and bright for his room, such as a large plush animal, or a new crib/wall toy. At the walking stage, they love the walking push toys (lawnmowers, fisher price push toys, etc). Computer-wise, they make some great kids software for ages 3 & up - he won't understand it now, but may enjoy the colors and lights as you and he play with the keyboard. Practical gift, get him a savings bond or something similar every b-day, and save them until he is 18.

my daughter has one... she's a year and 8 months.. she loves it

Buy your beloved baby some messed up t-shirts...

T Shirt Hell . Com

Get him a happy meal at McDonalds.

something he enjoys and can get some use/enjoyment out of right now on his birthday. Music is great for kids.. they enjoy it and it's also an excellent intro to math.

Buy him a great time and great memories... when they are that little a day at the park or someplace that has toys to play with is always fun. Toys at that age just get broken and end up in the garbage.. have some fun with your child..the greatest gift to give them is love

Whatever you decide to get him/her just make sure it comes in a really cool box and its in cool wrapping!

make sure you dont buy toys with any small parts - little rugrats have a tendency to put everything in their mouth, or up their nose.

big building blocks, baby safe - jumbo legos, or larger lincoln logs will let you teach the kid how to make stuff on his own

some kind of soft or cloth ball, that he can grip and play catch (or pick it up when it stops rolling) with

some of those wind up educational toys (a cow goes "moooooo")

a big plastic coloful slinky - if you have a small set of wide stairs, you just killed an hour or more

some soft stuffed animals - he's little, they like that shit

yes and the wiggles....great videos....makes your child think

or you can get him a laptop and have him start photoshop first :-) then go into some html, perl, php, cgi, etc...take it slow though

Put him some money aside for when he'll need it later.

no matter what you get, or how much you spend he will like the BOX it came in more than anything. Go to the storage place, get a big ass box and let him play with it.

I am not fucking around - when my kids were that age they had fight over the damm boxes. When I was packing shit I had to put together a box for them so they could play in it.

if he stays with his mom, get him something that makes noise... lots of noise

yea, my son is 6 months, and whenever he sits in my lap and im at the computer he always tys to mimic what im doing and bangs on my laptop keys and moves the courses with the touchpad

they got soem colorful keyboards with lights n sounds n stuff.. those would be nice

<h1> ROFL!!!!

I'm not a parent, but am definitely a doting uncle to several nieces and nefews.

Here's what I did at that age. Playschool (I think) had this cool electronic book where the kids push some buttons and then hit play and it told a story. It was picture based so they didn't have to be spelling anything. I know 1yo is kinda young for this kind of thing but I gotta tell ya, my youngest niece was learning to spell at the ripe old age of 2yo - in part I suspect because this was her favorite toy and also because my sis is a FREAK when it comes to educating her kids. I went to dinner at her house one night and had to take a piss, I walk in the bathroom and there are labels EVERYWHERE. I finish my bidness and come out and asked her what the hell were the labels for, her response: "Oh, Lydia is learning to read."
I about fell out.

You mentioned Land Before Time... no no no, avoid that shit like the plague.

Unless you *want* him to learn to be snotty to people because they look different, to be snotty in general, to constantly do what you're told not to do, call each other names, etc etc etc

At the very end of the video in the last 2 minutes they 'make it all right' and fix everything, but up to that point it's been an hour or more of beating all of these bad bratty habits into your son's head.
Guess which he'll remember more? The 2 minutes of moral story or the hour of it being cool to act like a total rude, disobeying brat?

Leappad has some baby stuff out now, I haven't played with it but all of the other Leappad stuff is top-notch.

Something that he can hang onto while walking, push around, with lots of funky buttons and bright colors will be a sure winner. Just make sure you can take the sound over and over and over and over and over...

You guys have some GREAT ideas!

I am astonished at the response of this thread! keep up the good work I am writting down ideas as we speak!

I was thinking about spending 100-120.00

2 other things I remembered my son loving at that age/little older: A toddler (fisher price) basketball net (most have lights and buttons); Toddler lights/sounds activity table - mine loved to stand and play after he have learned walk.

Anything by the Baby Einstein company...

You can find their stuff at Toys R Us.

hahahaha

Those are excellent responses.

For my son's first birthday, one of the gifts I got him was a hard soccer-ball shaped toy that had images of animals on each 'patch', that depending on which patch/animal it fell, the sound the animal made & the name of the animal was sounded with a musical jingle - it lit up and all ! It was pretty cool.

Buy him a hard bound book with lots of pictures on it.

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.

My vote is for outdoor toys -- some kind of toddler sized scooter or tricycle that he'll be able to ride soon.

My son barely sits down to watch tv, he's completely into sports and being outside, which suits me perfectly.