What's the perfect gift for someone who likes all the things he's not meant to play with and regularly tests it out by chewing on it?

A few of you have asked what we gave Ollie for his birthday because it's hard to buy gifts for one-year-olds.  It's even harder when they are not your first child so you already have age appropriate toys around.  I would have been tempted not to get anything because Ollie had no idea it was his birthday, but Creed would have known and been sad for him and most of our toys are in storage anyway.  Since we put them in storage last May and Ollie wasn't playing with much back then, most of the things he would like are in storage so I felt justified in buying a few things.

First off, for each birthday I like to give my boys a book, and I try to tape a picture of them at their current age inside the cover with their name and the date.  Someday, when they start their own families, they will have a little library of some of their favorite books.  I usually try to buy them their own copy of one of their favorite books, but this year I got Ollie, I Love Birthdays by Anna Walker.  I couldn't resist it because the main character is a Zebra named Ollie. I think we might need the whole series.

Then we got him this simple shape sorting house.

And his very own mini piano, which has been a big hit around here.

It's so fun watching him play with new toys and figure things out that it's hard not to go overboard.  My friend Rachel has a tradition of giving one-year-olds their own box of tissue and letting them go to town pulling it all out of the box, and that probably would have pleased Ollie just as much.