Baby's First B-Day.

It's a tough question to answer, but one that many parents agonize over as their baby approaches twelve months on the outside.

"What gift do I get for the baby's first birthday?"

The correct answer is "Nothing".  Your baby isn't going to remember it, let alone appreciate it or even be able to express his/her gratitude.  My best advice is to skip gifts for the first three or four years of your child's life, this includes Christmas as well as birthdays.  Save that money up for when they get older and start asking for the expensive crap.  Plus, if you don't get them anything on these special days, they won't be disappointed when you only get them that one pricey gift in the future.

If you still feel the need to get your kids something those first few years, there is one way to get around spending a lot of money, i.e., borrow your gifts from the library.  If you read to your kids a lot, they'll love getting new books for gifts.  Plus, libraries are a great source for music, movies, and games too.  Just check a few books out of the library, wrap them up and let them read for a week or two.  When you return the books, more than likely, your kid won't even notice they're gone.  If they ask, just say it's lost.

She's excited about her birthday gift. It's due back on Thursday.

I realize this answer is unacceptable to many parents and you're going to want to get your kid some thing they can keep for their first birthday.  So here are a few ideas to consider.

The gift you get for your child's first birthday depends on how many children you have.  For example, the first child usually gets loaded down with gifts from doting grandparents.  This factor is doubled if it is the first grandchild in the family.  If this is your situation, you won't have much room left in your house for anything you buy.  Best to let the grandparents shower your kid with love, they don't have many birthdays left anyway right?  You just worry about splurging on a nice cake, Themed Candy, and some quality food.

If it's your second child's 1st birthday, it's going to be harder to make it special.  Babies are old news in the family now and everybody is feeling buyer's remorse over all that stuff they bought for the first kid.  Most of it probably ended up in some stupid yard sale, but whatever is left, you need to re-wrap and re-gift.  Your oldest hasn't played with it in a year or two and your 12-month old isn't going to know.  Not only have you saved money, but you've created a learning experience.  Your oldest will see his sibling playing with "MY TOYS" and when he hits her to take it back, you can teach about sharing.

The baby will also be teaching. She'll teach you what happens the next time you steal her toy.

If it's your third (and final) child, I'd like to offer some perspective.  Here is our firstborn's B-day cake:

Notice how there is a nice background, his name is on it and there are at least six inedible things topping his cake, three of which are actual toys he can play with once he licks the icing off.  Now here is our oldest daughter's first birthday cake:

She still gets a nice cake, six inedible pieces, and her name on the cake, but she has to share the spotlight with her older brother.  Now here's our youngest's cake:

No name, not even a "Happy Birthday", no toy toppers, and it was bought on the way home to the party.  We can always Photoshop her name in later.  Is there an "Icing" font by any chance?

The more kids you have, the less attention they all get.  We have at least three albums full of all the pictures we've taken of our first child.  The second has one album in which many of the pictures are of her and her brother.  The third...well...at least there's Facebook.  No bulky albums and plenty of online storage.

So for the first birthday of our youngest child (one that is often lost in the shuffle), we're going to try giving the gift of attention.  At this point in her life she has hand-me-down clothes, hand-me-down toys, and nothing to show for it but bruises from an older sister that insists both the clothes and toys are hers.  If you want to make your child's first birthday special, don't buy them anything, just give them a little more thought and time out of your day.

I recommend buying your older kid a computer. They won't want to be bothered. The time you'd normally spend with them can now be focused on your youngest.

Update:  My sister-in-law, who happens to be awesome at artsy stuff,  just sent me this Photoshopped version of the baby's cake.  Nice job sis!