Gearhead Mom

Friday, October 26, 2007

Little Pig, Little Pig, Let Me In!

Posted by Missy W. @ 9:12 AM

It’s too bad the this toy isn’t made very well, because we really like it.

My cousin gave the the pigs and their houses to Sy as a gift when she turned one and she’s played with it just about every week ever since. Sy doesn’t know the story of the three little pigs yet, but she really loves this toy anyway. The houses nest inside each other and the largest house has a removable chimney top (which the wolf can jump down). The chimney has little slots for the color-coded keys which actually lock the little doors of their matching house. The doors open and close (and fall off, more on that later). The details are sweet: the pigs get larger for each house (and color coordinate to the house) and the houses have different styles of roofs, just like the tale of the three little pigs.

I think what’s great about the nesting toy is that it’s so open-ended: your child can make up stories with the pigs, work on fine motor skills with the keys or just heave the pigs behind the sofa. Rog and I tell stories to Sy using the pigs as different characters, she takes them in the bath with her and often likes to sleep with them on her bedside table. The wolf is curiously absent, come to think of it. I wonder if Sy tossed him into the fireplace in a fit of pique. I’ll have to look for him.

Anyway, there is a downside. The doors fall off every day. Every. Day. It really irks Sy and her pals and they are always thrusting a door in my face instructing me to fix it, pronto. There’s a simple little bit of plastic that holds the doors in place. Some of the bits have snapped off, which makes it easier for the door to fall out, but also easier to put the door back in. It is more mystifying to me on the ones where the little bits are still in place. Why do they fall off? Why is the sky blue? Why does Dora always YELL? Luckily the doors are pretty easy to put back together. We have so much fun with this toy that I’m over the fact that the quality of door construction is basically heinous. If stuff like that bothers you, this toy is not for you.

It’s been fun to watch the games change over the last year and a half. Sometimes I put it away in the back of the closet for a few weeks and when I bring it back out, a whole new game erupts. Hooray for toys with no batteries.

Snapshot:
• Nesting houses are fun to play with and even fun to clean up. All the little pigs fit in the smallest house so it does not take up too much room on the toy shelf.
• Four figurines and little details allow for open-ended, imaginative games.
• The doors fall off all the time, which is irksome. Seems to have gotten worse as time marches on. Perhaps they’ve fixed this since we got ours.
• Melissa and Doug make a cloth version, but it lacks appeal to me. Anyone tried it?

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