what to give.

Last summer, I read a piece by Lisa Bloom in The Huffington Post called How to Talk to Little Girls. It gave me pause and has really challenged me to think more about how I talk to little girls, especially my nieces. I notice my instinct with Stella is to regularly tell her how cute she is and make comments about her gorgeous, big blue eyes. Mind you she is only 11 months and can't talk yet. But I am trying to be very conscious about changing this habit. A conversation last week with ML brought this all back into my brain and this week I have been obsessing over not just what I say to little girls, but also what I should give little girls as gifts. Do you have any ideas?

Stella's first birthday is fast approaching and I want to be sure that from the start I give her gifts so she knows just how much I value everything she is already. Smart, creative, entertaining, curious, observant and adventurous. All that and more! My ideas so far are:

• wooden blocks
• some kind of musical gift (Stella lucked out and got some of her Mom's rhythm)
• a cool book with different textures to touch (for her to read on her long flight to Uruguay)

And now this is the perfect excuse to post another photo of Ms. Stella...