Parents, please glance for a moment....

at the toys on this list. Several of them are pretty common items. Lots are cute & look totally safe...'til you read about all the lead or how one piece pops off to create some kind of knife-looking thing. (That happened to one of the awesome, hand-painted wooden toys that I almost got Z when she was tiny. Thank goodness I looked here first.)
Oh, and if you got any of the Shrek glasses at Mc D's, be sure to take those back to the store right away (because of the dangerous chemical akin to lead peeling off of them as well as your $3 refund.:) Here's an article explaining what to do.

While I'm on the kid-topic, I think I'll post a few pix of what my "final decision" day (which was a while ago, I know) looked like. The day after Barclay & I talked about our decision not to adopt, I cleaned out all the kids stuff that I was saving & sifted through it, keeping only monogrammed items or things that were handmade for them (as well as a couple of things that just remind me of a special time of their babyhood...and of course their "gator" outfits!). It was a long, emotion-filled day!the mess...whew. it took a while to drag it all out of storage...then sort & re-box. yet, it was very worthwhile.

I called a few of our friends (all of whom are as penny-pinching as we are) and found out the size their little people were currently in, then I sorted for season/size/family and made special boxes or bags with the baby's names on them. That was really special, too. We have always been so blessed by so many friends and family providing us with hand-me-downs and other little things that we've not had to buy much "needed" items for the kids. We are SO thankful!re-boxed, labeled and ready to be delivered!

I wanted to do the same for others. I hope to continue to do the same as the kids grow. I also like to include the kids in some of the decision-making with the items they've outgrown because I think it's neat that Langston knows little baby Benjamin is wearing the tiny little green shorts that he once wore all the time (he looked so cute in them, J.!) or that Zora sees little 'Fia looking happy in her pink rain jacket (which she did). I think it helps them see the cycle of giving and sharing and "needs"...vs. our materialistic culture of "wants." I hope to be a better example all the time of that kind of teaching.



the "keep" box. this is just "from the top," so it's not all the kept items, but it contained a few hand-made sweaters, hats, monogrammed onesies (I still use their burpcloths for drying hands in their bathroom), Z's Polish baby boots, a few onesies they both wore their first few weeks, the first outfit I bought when I found out I was pregnant w a girl (yes, a pink dress & bloomers), a few UF outfits & a couple of other things. What would your "keep" box look like? What are some of your favorite baby things?