The Book Buying Tradition Continues...

When Carla and I first got on the adoption wait list, Carla came up with a brilliant idea to help make the waiting just a tiny bit more manageable.  Each month that we were on the wait list, we would each pick out one book for our one-day child.  That way, we would be able to grow our child's library while we waited for our child to find us.

The very day we got on the wait list, we went and bought our first books.  I wrote about those first books in another blog post, but I thought I would review the first books and the ones that have come since then.

The first month, we ended up leaving the bookstore with four books instead of two.  Here they are:

We ended up with two Todd Parr books (he is one of my favorite authors and writes a lot about family diversity and being proud of who you are).  Carla bought her very favorite book from childhood, The Very Hungry Caterpillar and the book Mama, Do You Love Me? It was a wonderful start to our book collection.

During the second month of waiting, we happen to be in California.  Before we left, Carla did some research and found a delightful independent children's bookstore and so we made sure to make that one of our stops.  It was adorable and I was so happy that our second month waiting books came from there.  Here they are:

Both of these books speak to our family and I can't help but feel incredibly thankful that there are books in today's world that will allow our child to see himself or herself reflected in the books that we read together.  I wish there had been books like these when I was a kid.  I wish that I had the chance to see myself reflected in this way in the books I read, but all I can do is feel grateful to live in a world where these types of books are becoming more and more common.  

Our third month of waiting was a pretty busy one and so we went to our local Barnes and Noble for our books.  The larger, chain bookstores tend not to have as big of a selection of books that promote family diversity.  But, don't worry, we managed to find two wonderful books.  Here they are: 

My choice was a baby's version of one of my all time favorite books, Oh! The Places You'll Go! It is called, Oh, Baby! Go, Baby! Carla's choice was I Like Myself! Two great books for the little one.  

Our most recent book buying brought us back to our all time favorite bookstore, "Women and Children First Bookstore." I could spend hours and many dollars in this store.  There is never a shortage of books with wonderful messages and a wide variety of families represented in wonderful ways.  Again, while we planned to only buy two books, we were swayed at the last minute to buy just one more.  Here is what we ended up with: 

My book was a recommendation from a blog reader.  Everywhere Babies is such a great book and I was so glad that the title was recommended to us.  Again, the book has wonderful representation of all sorts of families and all sorts of babies.  I absolutely fell in love with it as soon as I opened it.  Carla's choice was Zoo Borns! It is such a Carla book! It is filled with adorable pictures of brand new baby animals of all kinds.  Carla is hoping to start our child's love of animals and nature early on in life.  The last book, Penguin and Pinecone was too cute to pass up.  The final moral of the book is, "If you give love, it grows." I loved everything about the book and couldn't leave it behind.  

So those are our current books!  This weekend we decided to label each book in the following way: 

I love the idea that one day, we will be able to look at these inscriptions with our child and talk about the tradition of book buying that started while we were waiting for our child to find us.  Each book got labeled "Waiting for you month __." These books will make a wonderful timeline of our wait and one day we will be able to show our child just how excited we were for him/her to find us.  

In addition to the books that we have picked out, we have a few more additions.  We have an additional three books that have come from Aunts and Uncles to be.  Here they are: 

And then there are a few more books that we got from a variety of sources.  All together, here is our current collection: 

I love knowing that our collection is going to keep growing.  And even better, I love knowing that one day these are the books that we will be able to read together with our child as a family.