I’m going to send an email to various members of my family and CC Noah’s family. I’m going for tactful. For the record, this is one of those times when I am requesting feedback/advice. (I say that to remind people in general that if I do not specifically do so, I don’t want it.)
Dear family members!
So Christmas is coming up and there is at least a small possibility that some of you may be thinking about getting a present for Shanna. Receiving this email does not in any way obligate you. 🙂 Shanna is in 9-12 (or 6-12 depending on brand) clothing already. This means that by Christmas these may well be on the snug side so 12-18 is the very smallest size you should buy and more likely 18-24 just to be on the safe side. She is growing outrageously quickly (she is 19 lbs and just shy of 27″ last I checked) so we are going through clothing really quickly. It helps that most baby clothing is not made to go over a cloth diapered bubble butt. I am extremely hand-me-down friendly. If you have anything you want to pass along and call it a present I will consider that wonderful. I strongly tend towards gender neutral clothing but if you really want her to have an extremely girly outfit I will put it on her and take pictures for you so that you get the benefit. I have already started accumulating clothing in the next two sizes and I have some idea where we could use contributions the most.
12-18: we could use jammies. Our strongest preference is for one piece units with snap crotches. NO JEANS. I’m not sure how it happened, but I ended up with like 10 pairs of jeans in this size. We have only a couple of short sleeved onesies and no short sleeved shirts. We have a fair number of long sleeved onesies and long sleeved shirts. We also have probably as many sweater/jacket sort of things as we need given California weather. We don’t have any “outfits” in this size at this point but we love rompers.
18-24: we could use just about everything in this size. We have a couple of jammies and a couple of onesies and a pair of jeans and a pair of leggings. I guess I haven’t been focusing on this size in shopping yet. 🙂
For books I went through and put all of her books online: http://www.goodreads.com/profile/ShannaBoBanna so that people can see if we have a book before purchasing it. She really loves her board books and we are going slightly batty reading the same ones over and over. We have learned that she strongly leans in the direction of highly rhythmic quick paced books. Her favorite is Hands, Hands, Fingers, Thumb followed closely by Dr. Seuss books. She doesn’t really have the attention span for longer books yet but I don’t think it will take long. Her goodreads profile also includes all of the childrens/young adult fiction Noah and I have collected over the years as Noah reads from more grown-up books at bedtime.
As far as toys go I am fairly minimalist; we don’t have a large house. I have a strong preference for sturdy toys that will stand up to usage by several children. Once again: hand-me-downs are awesome. I am a crunchy Californian and I think that reusing things instead of producing more for a landfill is the best thing you can do. We have all the rattles we could possibly ever need thanks to the generous hand-me-downs and gifts so far. What we don’t have is anything like wooden blocks. In general I would love to have wooden toys over plastic where possible. I also hope to encourage her in the direction of imaginative play by giving her things that look more generic instead of being heavily branded. We don’t have a television so there is no point in getting her toys that correlate heavily with television cartoons because she won’t get the context. When she is older I’m sure that she will eventually want branded stuff but I’m not pushing in that direction.
Wow I got long-winded. Before I close I want to repeat that I don’t expect to receive any gifts from anyone despite how much pressure you might feel from the length of this email. 🙂 I promise I will upload some new pictures soon. Next weekend is the second half of the comprehensive examination for my masters and I’m behind on a lot of things.
I don’t know how your family reacts to requests like this. In my family, the procedure would be to wait until someone asks what size or what items to get, and then to send all this information out. The note itself includes useful information and clearly stated preferences – which as we all know will go cheerfully ignored by some. 🙂 But you’ve made a good effort here for people who want the info.
My family tends towards waiting till the last minute then buying something wildly inappropriate last minute at Walgreens. My sister bought me a bunch of acne medication one year. It was awesome. For the record: I had approximately three zits. *sigh* I’m hoping to get them out of that pattern. I would rather them get nothing at all then get her a crappy rattle from Walgreens.
I’m not actually worried about offending my family. They would probably take this as a hint to hunt up hand-me-downs. I’m more worried about offending Noah’s family.
My family tends towards waiting till the last minute then buying something wildly inappropriate last minute at Walgreens. My sister bought me a bunch of acne medication one year. It was awesome. For the record: I had approximately three zits. *sigh* I’m hoping to get them out of that pattern. I would rather them get nothing at all then get her a crappy rattle from Walgreens.
I’m not actually worried about offending my family. They would probably take this as a hint to hunt up hand-me-downs. I’m more worried about offending Noah’s family.
I don’t know how your family reacts to requests like this. In my family, the procedure would be to wait until someone asks what size or what items to get, and then to send all this information out. The note itself includes useful information and clearly stated preferences – which as we all know will go cheerfully ignored by some. 🙂 But you’ve made a good effort here for people who want the info.
My general impression of it is that it reads almost like a demand letter. I would start with a chatty, social opening paragraph. Mention that the charming little devil is doing quite well, standing up, starting to talk, doing advanced calculus… whatever the truth is, and that she’s growing far faster than expected. In general, up the chattiness factor a lot and reduce the shopping-list content a fair bit.
I might condense a lot of it into a wish list from some online site, with some wording around it to say that you aren’t in need of specifically those items, but that they are the general theme, size, etc. that she most needs. Certainly mention that you welcome hand-me-downs.
Close it with some more chattiness.
My general impression of it is that it reads almost like a demand letter. I would start with a chatty, social opening paragraph. Mention that the charming little devil is doing quite well, standing up, starting to talk, doing advanced calculus… whatever the truth is, and that she’s growing far faster than expected. In general, up the chattiness factor a lot and reduce the shopping-list content a fair bit.
I might condense a lot of it into a wish list from some online site, with some wording around it to say that you aren’t in need of specifically those items, but that they are the general theme, size, etc. that she most needs. Certainly mention that you welcome hand-me-downs.
Close it with some more chattiness.
This is all completely reasonable and practical. I love it that you emphasize hand-me-downs, and that you offer to take pictures. It makes the tone of the entire note sincere and warm, and is just one more example of how thoroughly awesome you are.
In my family, the tactful way to handle this would be to send the note to my mother, who would then dispense the information as needed to the rest of the family when they called to ask “what should I get her?!” That is just one more layer of effort to keep people from feeling put on the spot. I am from NJ, CoDep Capital of the World, tho, so YMMV.
This is all completely reasonable and practical. I love it that you emphasize hand-me-downs, and that you offer to take pictures. It makes the tone of the entire note sincere and warm, and is just one more example of how thoroughly awesome you are.
In my family, the tactful way to handle this would be to send the note to my mother, who would then dispense the information as needed to the rest of the family when they called to ask “what should I get her?!” That is just one more layer of effort to keep people from feeling put on the spot. I am from NJ, CoDep Capital of the World, tho, so YMMV.
“Recieving this email in no way obligates you” twigs something on my trigger button for my family for some reason (ie: if a family member sent me this email, that would be the bit that would catch me for some reason…guess obligation is a loaded word for me). No suggestions for change, just the bit that caught me 🙂
You may want to send two somewhat differently-worded letters for your family and Noah’s, and have him edit the one for his family.
It might also be worth putting the stuff about what you want in general first, then specific requests (wooden toys), then the list of “we’ve already got enough of X” at the end, unless you think that your readers won’t get that far.
Since you’re asking
I would:
replace “Receiving this email does not in any way obligate you.”
with “In case your thoughts are tending towards clothing, here are the items and sizes that would be most useful”
and
replace “the very smallest size you should buy”
with “the very smallest size that would work”
Ading a conversational paragraph at the beginning that somehow gracefully segues into Christmas plans and then presents would make it more palatable.
I think I would tend to agree with all the advice that’s been posted so far, especially writing a second letter to Noah’s family. You could even, if you wanted, send the one letter to each person in your family, then send just one to Noah’s mother (or whomever), if their tradition is more along the lines of asking for suggestions for things.
I think that adding more chatty stuff not only would change the overall tone, but that it would reinforce the idea that you are not trying to obligate them, whether or not you leave in that particular sentence.
FWIW, I just put together a bag of clothes Kai has outgrown, I believe mostly in the 12-24 month range. I’m still deciding if I should throw all of his 2T clothes in a bag as well. If you are interested, let me know.
Yes, please! 🙂
Are you going to be down in the South Bay any time soon? Or should we make our way up to Fremont to drop them off? Noah has this week off of work, so I’m relatively mobile.
ok, pretty much what everyone else wrote.
Writing exercise, oh writing teacher.
Rewrite the whole of the above so that rather than having it appear like a shopping list, its a State of the child’s development letter for all family members.
example.:Shanna is in 9-12 (or 6-12 depending on brand) clothing already. This means that by Christmas these may well be on the snug side so 12-18 is the very smallest size you should buy and more likely 18-24 just to be on the safe side.
rewrite: We’ve been completely blown away by how fast Shanna is growing. We’re happy to report she’s well ahead of the curve, so much so that even though she’s only about 6 months she’s already wearing the 9-12 month cloths, and the doctor has predicted she’ll already be 12-18 by xmas (and that she’s perfectly healthy), possibly larger.
example: For books I went through and put all of her books online: http://www.goodreads.com/profile/ShannaBoBanna so that people can see if we have a book before purchasing it.
edit: Along with some of my other young mom friends, I’ve taken a clue from the new trend of sharing on line the book titles their reading, for those of you who are at all interested in what she’s reading the list is at http://www.goodreads.com/profile/ShannaBoBanna
You have good suggestions. It’s amazing how much I bristle at your tone though. Thanks for continuing to try with me.
As always, I admire and respect your ability to just put it out there and be clear. Can I borrow your skills for a day or two? I promise to give them back…lol!
I’m totally happy to share. 🙂
“Send money. Lots of it. Please.”
…laughing…
might i suggest something less direct?
don’t even mention presents…
instead…
up-load astoundingly cute pictures of Da Kid with things she really loves.
then, add captions like:
“One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish.”
show a picture of her being stuff into jeans:
“She sure HATES anything but rompers!”
and so forth.
and then send a really newsy email,
mention the sizes she’ll be in.
and leave it at that.
hell, even *I’M* smart enough to know what to do…
and…
if you do get stuff you can’t use
don’t get pissed.
just donate it to kids what ain’t got nothing
and feel good, instead.