I have been very lucky: during this time of intense political/cultural suffering, combined with less-intense-but-still-unpleasant job suffering, I have had these three things, each overlapping somewhat with the last, to keep me from being without something wonderful to think about:
• wonderful long-awaited (years of fertility issues) pregnancy news from a distant-but-dear younger cousin, followed in time by wonderful baby news and ongoing photos, and getting to pick out baby clothes and baby board books (their registry was absolutely RAZED, everyone was so happy for them)
• wonderful engagement news from a favorite coworker (approximately the age of my eldest child), followed by ongoing wedding-planning updates and soon a workplace bridal shower I will get to bake a cake for and choose a gift for
• wonderful surprise-baby news from the (grown!) child of another dear cousin, and getting to think about what gift I will send; and they plan to get married sometime after the baby is born, so then I will get to choose another present!
There was a time when I was younger and marriages and babies were happening CONSTANTLY, and then there was a long dry spell where the news was more like divorces and Issues, and now it feels like I am at the small starting edge of another surge of marriages and babies. Friends’ kids are starting to get engaged! Former classmates are grandparents already! HERE WE GO. (How do you write an extended “go” so it doesn’t look like an extended “goo”?)
I am a little jealous of families that have a more even spread of these events. I never got to go to a wedding as a child, and then suddenly we were having them every year in my twenties, and now we will most likely have none for another decade or more. And the latest baby slept through our visit in her carrier, so that might just be it for me for people handing me newborns until I am old enough to be a grandparent. But…it does seem excellent that this is happening in your family at a time when you are situated to enjoy it.
Maybe “here we go-ooooo!”
Here is how I know I am nearly old enough for grandkids: I am old enough to be judgy about baby registries, haha. Seriously, the last few I saw were FULL of $200+ items and didn’t even really include sleepers or board
books. Books are still my favorite thing to gift, but I even find myself judging the recently published children’s books….”they were just better quality literature in our day.” For reference, I am 45 and my child most likely to procreate is only 16 so I think I better cool my crotchety jets for awhile.
Expensive stuff goes on the registry for the completion discount! Not because we expected anyone to actually buy it. But the store gave us a coupon at the end for the rest of the stuff on there. For our third kid, we only made up a registry for that reason and didn’t send it to anyone at all.
Oh oh but I have opinions on this! Yes, many of our treasured favorites are older (Blueberries for Sal! Roxaboxen! Cars and Trucks and Things That Go! Pelle’s New Suit! King Island Christmas!) BUT there are some extraordinary books that are recently published. Oge Mora, Phoebe Wahl, Jon Klassen, and Jon Muth are some incredible authors who are active right now.
Wait, can we have a post where everyone just gets to list favorite kids books?? That would be the perfect compliment to all these wonderful babies you get to enjoy.
(I am prone to giving Jamberry and I am a Bunny to new babies, but I’d love new ideas!)
Yes, baby books thread please! I am a wet blanket, but I haaaaate Guess How Much I Love You by Sam McBratney. Upon googling it, I see that it’s British, so I think if I pronounced my t’s more crisply I wouldn’t have such a tongue twisty time saying the names. But having to repeatedly say “Little Nutbrown Hare” and “Big Nutbrown Hare” in my flat midwestern accent just annoyed me over and over.
However I have many many modern favorites, including board books with everyday diversity which we all need more of!
I love kids books and I’m British in the US and I’m not a huge fan of Guess How Much I Love You either. We had it at some point, back in the day, and it wasn’t one that caught my attention or love. I don’t think my kids enjoyed it either.
I’m in for this!
Books can be given off-registry, for sure! Especially if they are timeless classics which, as you say, are just better.
I personally did not put much in the way of board books, clothes or blankets on my registry because those are things that people love choosing themselves and I knew we’d end up with plenty no matter what!
Such wonderful news! I feel like I’ve been on a desert when it comes to weddings, it has been since 2016 that I attended one! But! My friend’s son and his wife are having a baby, and it’s our first grandchild. So exciting, you can bet I RSVP’d immediately when I got the shower invite!
I rarely keep in touch with former coworkers but the one exception just had a baby TODAY and sent me a photo that I got before breakfast and it’s been the loveliest little shot of serotonin all day. And now I get to send a care package across the country while marveling at the fact that we are the same age but my (only) baby is almost 19 and his (third) baby is BRAND NEW, oy vey.
We’ve had a few wedding and babies on my husband’s side recently as he’s the youngest of his cousins so the older cousins’ kids are starting to pair off and procreate. On my side I have 3 younger cousins, only one of whom am I in touch with, and her kids are just hitting double digits. And my 3 siblings never had kids so the next round of babies on my side will be when my kids start having kids, and that’ll likely be a few years since they’re currently 17 and 19 (barring any unplanned pregnancies).
I see this stage off in the near future for me. I haven’t been to a wedding in more than a decade and I am currently in the “buy a bulk pack of graduation cards” stage, but weddings and babies are coming and I am so excited for when this starts to get here. Matt and I don’t have large extended families though (like neither of us has cousins that really count) so we never have a lot of these events to go to.
How nice to have good news and milestones to enjoy. We are headed to the West Coast to attend a wedding this weekend. My sister and her husband got married during covid and are having the wedding five years later. It actually feels a little anticlimactic to me, but it will be fun to see family.