Gifts for a 2 year old

[mom61508]

Dd will be 2 June 15th. What would be some good gift ideas for a 2 year old??

She has a shopping cart, babies, kitchen and purse already

[lach]

Mine is nearing three, and some of the top toys of the past year have been:

- Puzzles. She is a puzzling fiend! She's just started moving from the wooden type to the jigsaw type
- Wedgits. Love the Wee Wedgits 30 piece set particularly. A great toy.
- She loves her baby doll, and loves playing with her. She has a high chair, a cradle, and a changing table with swing that we got from Elves and Angels. At the opposite end of the crunch spectrum, Target has really nice baby doll accessory sets. There's a potty one, a bath one, a medical one, a feeding one. We have them all and they get a lot of play.
- Books are always good. We have subscriptions to both Babybug and Wild Animal Baby. She likes Wild Animal Baby a lot, but LOVES Babybug. She gets so excited when there's a new one, and I have to read it to her a hundred times a day for a few days, and then once or twice a day thereafter.
- I sew, and she wants to copy me, so I got her some lacing cards from eboo that she really likes. They have really nice games at that site too.
- Crafty stuff: paints, play dough, stickers, glue. Anything glue is a huge hit at our house. Oh and rubber stamps, she loves those.

It's such an amazing year to watch them grow and develop. In many ways she was still such a baby at her 2nd birthday, and now she's such a little girl. She has toys and games that she isn't the least bit ready for... and then a month later she's totally on top of it.

[curiouscanadian]

I got DS a balance bike as an early 2nd birthday present. He's not really into it yet, but as lach described, I'm anticipating the day when it seems like overnight that becomes his thing!

I love so many of lach's suggestions and am definitely considering a subscription to Babybug now! The Wedgits intrigue me a bit. They look different (and different is usually good in my experience), but I can't wrap my head around how they're really played with? Can someone explain them to me?

I've also seen suggestions of a dress-up kit (suitcase, trunk or similar filled with dress up clothes), but don't know if that would be for a slightly older girl? I only thought of it as DS likes playing with my necklaces and hats, so maybe...?

What about a sand/water table? I have a weird kid who doesn't like to get dirty (until just recently he looked like a beached whale if he fell down outside because he was trying so hard not to touch sand or grass ) but I've heard from a lot of others that is a toddler favorite.

(P.S. Also subbing for others' ideas! )

[lach]

The sand and water table is a great one... my daughter loved hers both last summer and this.

She has recently gotten really into dressup, but I think she likes the pretty clothes aspect more than she really understands the imaginative play aspect. She does love headbands with animal ears on them, though, and gets that! I don't think you can go wrong with dress up things, but I think that's something that they understand closer to 3.

The Wedgits are super addictive. Basically there are 5 different shapes, and they fit into eachother. And a very young child can stack them simply and just make little pyramids, and an older child can turn them sideways to fit them in and experiment with stacking the different sizes to make different types of towers and shapes. My in-laws got them as a christmas present for DD when she was about 18 months old, and she immediately loved building simple pyramids. I'd say they're still one of the top three toys at our house, and she tries to build really tall towers. It's sort of hard to explain! On their website, under the 5 piece set, you can see some of the more interesting configurations. The Wee Wedgits are soft rubber, and I actually like them better than the Wedgits for older kids, which are smaller and hard plastic. DH and I sit around building towers sometimes.

[lexmas]

My gift of choice is a balloon ball. Simplest toy ever, but every kid I know who has met one has loved it! It's pretty much the only toy my kids need downstairs!

Other than that, at two (okay, before two and until now) DS likes his animals...we have a hodge podge of them... schleich, papo, safari ltd., anamalz...

[mom61508]

Wow ladies amazing ideas!!! The balloon ball is awesome!!!! I love the book subscription and wedgits too!!! I think I'm going to get all three. I'm very interested in the sand/water table I have yet to look it up though.

Thanks Mamas!!!!

[corrieoseal]

DD is 23 months. We have already bought her birthday gifts because I am a planner.

- balance bike (from her grandparents)

From DH and I:
-Duplo sets
-Alphabet blocks from Uncle Goose (she's ABC obsessed right now)
-New magnets for the dishwasher (our fridge isn't magnetic )
-Puzzles

She is also really into dollhouses right now. We aren't buying her one because she plays with my 1980's Strawberry Shortcake house and an old Sylvanian Families house. Otherwise, I'd get her one of the Plan Toys houses.

Another toy she enjoys right now is her Rody.

[kwilki8]

My dd got a sand and water table and a play tent for her birthday when she turned 2 and still plays with them now that she's 5. For my son's 2nd birthday, we wanted to go with outdoor playthings since we have so many books and puzzles, so he got a tee ball set, a bowling set, and a soccer goal. None were very expensive, and the kids are currently playing with them every day.

[corrieoseal]

I wanted to add that you can get pretty good deals on water tables right now at most of the warehouse stores (Costco, BJ's, etc.) And, of course, Craigslist and second hand stores may have them for sale with the weather warming. My folks told me last night that they got DD a Step2 table from last season at Costco for $40 this weekend.

DD is also super into bubbles! A nice set up with big wands that little hands can hold easily and a large tray to dip them in would make a wonderful gift.

I love having a child with a late spring birthday!

[rightkindofme]

Our daughter's birthday is in six days. For her birthday she is getting a 'dress me' monkey because she really really loves practicing with buttons/zippers/snaps/etc. She is also getting a play kitchen. My best friend is the most AWESOME guy ever and he made her Grace's Playhouse Kitchen and we already have play food/dishes. I don't have pictures of our kitchen yet because I need to go to his house and paint tonight so we can finish putting it together and figure out burners and such. He extended the counters a little so that she will have more room to 'prep' her food.

[PhotoJournMama]

We did craft stuff for DS's 2nd birthday - an easel and a craft cupboard (just one of the plastic ones with lots of drawers) and filled it with different types of paper, paint brushes, markers, crayons, glue (sticks, white, and glitter), googly eyes, feathers, pompoms, etc. - loooots of fun stuff!

[nelson]

DS just had his party Sun. and his favorite gifts were a little wooden musical instrument that you can blow and a doll house.