The Retract-A-Gate is hands-down the best gate ever. I’ve owned several different respected types of gates, so I feel I can make such a bold statement. Sure, safety is the No. 1 concern—and it meets all those requirements with flying colors—but the main reason why I love this gate is because it practically disappears and is so easy to operate.
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I saw these cupcakes featured over at Oompa way back in 2007. I wanted to get them for Sy, but we’d already met her one toy limit for Christmas, so I just had to sit around and hope that one of Sy’s pals would receive them. Jackpot! Kara got a set and boy are they pretty in real life, even the family dog thinks they should be his toys. They have a good heft to them and are knitted together well enough to withstand a few beatings and chewings by toddlers. Each kid who saw them at Micky’s the other day went straight for them and tried to pop ‘em right into their salivating mouths. And you know, they just look really cute.
Sy gets a bit irked that the knit wrapper on the bottom half does not come all the way off. She pulls with all of her might to rip it off, I fear that someday soon she’ll be successful. I remind her every time that it’s a pretend cupcake and that the wrapper is just a decoration, but I am not sure she believes me. Regardless, she loves to play with them. A good addition to the picnic routine.
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In celebration of GHM being on the internet waves for just over a year now, we’re reposting some of our favorite reviews. Here’s one of my faves from Jenny. Enjoy (again)!
Editor’s Note: I’d like to introduce the first guest reviewer to the site, my best friend from fifth grade, Jenny. Jenny is an educator and a mom of two girls. Without further adieu, I give you Jenny’s Counter-Princess-Propaganda Product Program.
I am hard-pressed to find a three or four-year-old girl who hasn’t succumbed to Disney Princess madness and whose parents can’t be overheard mumbling “That’s it! I am calling a moratorium on princess paraphernalia…” as his/her daughter opens the third birthday gift…“Oh, great! It’s Barbie Swan Princess.” These are the same parents who painted their daughter’s bedroom in gender-neutral hues and dressed her in overalls, to no avail: she will only wear dresses (like my daughter—even skirts are suspiciously un-princess-like).
The Disney Princess Phenomenon is more insidious than carbon monoxide, more silent, more deadly (well, silent in the early stages, anyway…beware the shrill tones, for example, of Disney Princess CD Player).
Nevertheless, folks, my message is two-fold:
1) give in, to a certain extent, and allow your little girl to express herself, as some of this is natural, and
2) be just as insidious as Disney (and Mattell) and fight ingeniously against the hegemony of the princesses-rule-my-daughter’s-very-existence-syndrome. Try, at least.
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The thing that annoys me the most about Ikea is their website. I feel like they hide half the products and the other half are available to look at, but only a quarter of those are available to purchase online. Luckily, their totally rad Mala easel is amongst the glorified few available for online purchase.
The Mala easel is like a Kenmore appliance: it’s efficient, lacks most bells and whistle, and abslutely does its job. It has a chalkboard on one side and white board on the other, and it even folds flat when not in use. You can also buy the Mala paper roll separately that you can pull over the white board side for painting or drawing.
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I have two daughters, two and four, both of whom love to “help” me cook and as well as to sneak water into their bedroom in various containers to make…well, messes. They’ve also outgrown a play kitchen that served us well (the Little Tykes Discover Sounds Kitchen, which is great, by the way, for tight spaces and 1-to-3 year olds. We had an earlier, less gadgety version than this one.
Time for an upgrade (Did I mention that my OWN kitchen needs an upgrade too? Anyway…). I spent quite a bit of time looking at play kitchens and comparing reviews and sizes and features. Here were my specifications:
1. Made of wood. We have plenty of plastic toys, so I am not a die-hard wooden-toy mama, but I don’t like the big, NOISY plastic kitchens out there. They remind me of bad model-home kitchens: overdone and So About To Look Dated.
2. Big enough to be interesting, but small enough to not Overwhelm MY Small Kitchen.
3. Removable Sink Basin. This was a must, as my daughters were going to pour water on this toy whether it held water or not. I wanted to be able to clean this part and carry it away from my overzealous Aquarians if need be.
4. One piece. While I like some of the kitchens that have separate refrigerators and ovens, they tend to take up more space, and rather needlessly, in my book.
5. Two cooks=not too many. I have two budding chefs who want to play at the same time. I looked for a kitchen with space for more than one little culinary genius—and I liked kitchens that functioned like islands, and which my girls could walk around, but I DON’T HAVE ROOM FOR AN ISLAND IN MY OWN KITCHEN, so finding free floor space for the toy was not going to work.
6. Less than $200. That requirement immediately disqualified anything from Pottery Barn, for example.
Enter the Kidkraft Retro Blue Kitchen, which we all love, kids and parents and neighborhood children alike. Some reasons it’s great:
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Ed. Note: This just in from my sister, Gwen. Her daughter is seven, so we’ll get a good round of older kiddo toys reviewed post-Christmas. Thanks, sistah!
I’m usually right about the toys T is going to like. I was wrong about Magformers. She likes things with personality (little creatures, storybook figures, etc.), things that torture parents (like Polly Pockets), or things that are crafty. She is not into building things like Magformers by Rainbow Products. We don’t do Legos or blocks (and never have, much to my husband’s dismay). So when I saw the Magformers unwrapped in the holiday crush I was lock-solid certain it would be a miss.
Boy was I wrong.
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