Gearhead Mom

Monday, December 17, 2007

Stacrobats!

Posted by Missy W. @ 9:17 AM

I am a huge fan of Alton Brown of Good Eats/Food TV fame. I love his scientific/geeky/humorous approach to food. He’s also got some tasty recipes, I use any excuse to make his chewy chocolate chip cookies . Anyway, Alton Brown is not a fan of the uni-tasker tool in his kitchen. You know, like an asparagus peeler. What else can you do with it but peel asparagus? Alton demands his kitchen utensils to be multi-taskers (his one uni-tasker exception: the fire extinguisher). I tend to approach Sy’s toy purchases the same way. Is this toy only going to be good for one sort of game, or will it be more open ended and hold my kid’s attention long enough for me to peel my asparagus the old fashioned way, with a vegetable peeler. I got the Zolo Stacking Magnetic Acrobats (Stacrobats!) for Sy when she was about a 16 months old. Alas. I think this is a case of a toy gone uni-tasker.

The set includes five super cheery magnetic acrobats and three cheery magnetic balls, all enclosed in their own cheery carrying case, which when you turn it over, turns into a (you guessed it) cheery magnetic stage. When Sy first got it, she mainly liked to throw the balls around (and maddeningly, under the furniture). Once she figured out that the magnet part was a total kick in the pants, she agreed that there was more to the toy than hucking part of it near and far. She squealed when she’d get two stacrobats and to link together via all that magnetic magical magic. Then she’d add a ball and shake it until some poor, unsuspecting stacrobat would fall off, laugh a hearty chuckle and begin again.

But that was it. After about three minutes, that was all she wrote. She’d leave the dolls to their own party and move on, looking for the next big thrill. After a while she lost interest in it completely, so I put it away in a bin at the bottom of her closet. I pulled it out recently to see if her interested would be piqued. Pretty much the same thing. She’s got that whole magnet thing down pat, so while she does enjoy stacking the dolls, it lasts about three minutes, same as before. My kid has a super long attention span, by the way, so I figure this uni-tasker just aint worth the package it came in.

Snapshot:
• Fun with magnets (safely sewn inside). Brightly colored, non-plastic, slightly chewable toy.
• Uni-tasker Alert: the stacrobats do not really lend themselves to other games well.
• High price tag for a toy that never gets played with in our house for more than five minutes.

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