I don’t know about you, but my favorite toys EVER were the old school Fisher-Price Little People toys. (Not to sound like a hater, but the new ones are weak. In the little house set we had (and have since sold), the dad is on the phone. What’s up with that? Put the phone down and hang out with your kid. Talk about pigeon-holing the imagination.) My mom saved all of them and that’s all Sy plays with when we go to her house. It’s all I play with when we go to her house. The town with the little mail truck and plastic letters that go through the mail slots is my favorite. Although I am a big fan of the airport. And the parking garage. I could go on…
Anyway, Fisher-Price busted some cool moves and made some new sets to look like the old school ones. The scale is a big larger, but it definitely has the same feel. And they are only $18.00. Way cheaper than the old ones are on Ebay. Anyone have them yet? They have the fold up school and barn. I wonder if they’ll put out more. I hope so!
My little two-year-old’s winningest Christmas gift was one of the simplest: a purse and “accessories” from her aunt and uncle. She played with that purse and carried it with her everywhere solidly for a week. And it still features prominently in what we lovingly call her entourage (the cache of stuff she brings to our bedroom in the middle of the night, in the car on errands, on walks in the stroller, and which she attempts to take to preschool each day).
There are plenty of plush purse sets on the market labeled variously My First Purse (see this one or this one). But any self-respecting toddler knows the difference between a PANDERING purse and YOUR REAL one (even if it is only a knock-off…), which is why they will continue to rummage around in yours, ruining lipsticks, texting your friends gibberish, and taking your keys to an undisclosed location far far away from your bag, if you should mistakenly think the Commercially Packaged First Purse will suffice.
Instead, take my sister’s lead, and buy a cute, albeit cheap little pocketbook (WITH a shoulder strap, of course!) and then fill it yourself!
First in a series of Post-Holiday Round-up: Lame or Game? is the chronicle of one gift with promise that didn’t deliver.
As far as holiday disappointments go, let’s begin with the GeoTrax GeoAir Mega Set, which my mom bought for her Grandparents’ Cache of Cool Stuff. This toy looks undeniably cool in the box, in the store. One has only to begin assembly to realize that while it may be cool for kids, it could cause parents to overheat.
Ed. Note: And here we have the fourth installment from sister-ville. Thanks again, G - you can write here anytime!
It started with Ruby the Red Fairy. A simple little book, cute little fairy girl on the front cover, bright colors (I’m a sucker for bright book covers). My daughter brought it home in kindergarten as an introductory chapter reader. I was proud. She was proud. She read it aloud to me. We both enjoyed the adventures of Rachel and Kirsty as they raced to help fairy Ruby find her way back to her magical fairy world.
Then the next book came home. Ruby’s rainbow sister Amber the Orange Fairy had to be rescued. Then came Sunny the Yellow Fairy (this book was evidently published under two different titles…some libraries have it as Saffron the Yellow Fairy), then Fern the Green Fairy and on and on and on and on.
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.
Ed. Note: Here’s Jenna’s second post. Thanks, Jenna and feel free to stop by and post any old time!
Although not everyone in my house who would agree, my kids do not need any more toys. I suspected even they realized this when the pair of them—at the tender ages of 3 and 5—both put “a new toothbrush” (unprompted) on their respective Christmas lists. I mean, if that’s not scraping the bottom of the wish- bucket, I don’t know what is.
So it was with great trepidation that I eyed the poor mail carrier every day during the endless month of December as he struggled up the front path under a towering stack of boxes. Obviously, my children’s seven hundred aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins and a global smattering of honorary relatives were fully unaware of their severe lack of need—and our growing shortage of storage space. Toys R Us, indeed.
I had gently requested (not altogether accurate) early in the season, via mass email, that if any of our nearest did feel compelled to express their affection for my daughters with a physical token, that it pretty pretty please be a) small, b) educational, c) something I could re-gift or sell on eBay (ideally for a profit), or d) some combination of the above. Cash, I may have added in what I hoped was a subtle post script, was always welcome and no longer considered gauche.
Puzzles and picture books, baby dolls and bath robes, gadgets and games piled up with reckless abandon. A few of them got a little play before they were tossed into the sub-tree abyss, but for a while there was no clear stand-out.
And then we tore into the Shrink Art Jewelry Kit by Klutz. An updated take on the Shrinky Dinks my sister and I loved as a kid, this kit kept the kids (okay, and me—but it was by choice) busy for hours.
Ed. Note: Guest Review Time!
The coolest part of the blogosphere is that I have become friends with people I’ve never met. This is the case with Jenna McCarthy, whose very funny book, The Parent Trip, I reviewed back in August. Jenna is one of the funniest women I’ve never met. Since I am so fond of her, I figured my readers would be too, so Jenna’s served up two reviews for your reading pleasure. Please enjoy installment one and tune in tomorrow for another dose. Thanks, Jenna!
Dear Sir or Madam,
Thank you so much for taking the time to create such an adorable little product! My three-year-old’s eyes nearly popped out of her head when she realized that Santa had brought her the pink plastic bubble-blowing monkey of her dreams. As you can imagine, when she saw that BBM even came with his very own bottle of bubbles (okay, it was a few droplets of watered down cheap-ass generic dish soap, but how was she to know this? The kid’s three. She’s hardly a bubble connoisseur.), she nearly wept with joyous anticipation.
Except—and you probably can guess what’s coming here—the effing thing didn’t work.
I’ll start this post by saying that I’d * really * rather tell you that Sy’s favorite toy of the year was her Plan Toys dollhouse, but she never plays with the damn thing. Unfortunately, the main interaction she has with her lovely, wooden dollhouse is when she walks by, shoves her little doll family on the sofa and says, “They’re watching TV” and keeps moving. Nice. So glad we bought that!
Alas, the MVP of toys in our house for 2008 was a huge hunk of talking plastic: The Loud as Hell Rescue Center. As I mentioned back in June, Sy was completely bananas for her Talking Diego Rescue Center. And seven months later, she still enjoys this toy a whole heckuva lot. As far as her TV time goes, she’s (thankfully) swapped out Diego for the Barefoot Contessa, but she still keeps this hunk of plastic at the foot of her bed and plays with it at least three or four days of the week. Too bad they don’t have any Ina Garten dolls, she’d be so into it. I’d so rather we have a play TV kitchen than a Rescue Center that YELLS.
Seattle-based I Can Do That! Games™ was founded by Jacobe Chrisman, formerly Cranium’s head of product development, responsible for many of that company’s award-winning games for children. The team at I Can Do That! Games believes that “play is essential for the development of happy, healthy kids. Playing games is all about experiencing play with others. Taking turns, teaming up, helping each other, winning, and even sometimes losing are important life lessons we practice as we play games.” I couldn’t agree more. So when they asked Sy and I to review a new game on the scene, we gladly took on the request.
I Can Do That! Games uses well-known Dr. Seuss characters in all of their games, a bonus for me because like most of you, Dr. Seuss and I go way back. And since I am the one playing the game with Sy, it’s nice to be surrounded with old friends such as Horton, the Grinch or the goat from Green Eggs and Ham. Green Eggs and Ham - Busy Diner was the obvious choice for us since Sy is so obsessed with cooking, cooking shows, playing chef, and generally leaving all play food items under the coffee table (her “refrigator”).
Learning Curve asked Gearheadmom to help promote its new Mrs. Goodbee Interactive Dollhouse by sending us one to donate and one to keep and review. Sy did a fantastic job of demonstrating the spirit behind this toy by sharing hers with a family in need. We are demonstrating no such philanthropy in our household by plopping ours in the middle of the living room as a pre-holiday gift and playing with it daily.
We’ve had Mrs. Goodbee and her interactive faux-English accent in our house for a week. Verdict: my little almost-three-year-old, C, loves her Caring Corners House. The mission behind the dollhouse is “learning social responsibilities that will prepare [your child) for the real world.” The toy appeared to be working before I even got it out of the box: Little C was clapping and tenderly telling her mama “Thank you!” at every piece unpackaged. Yes! A little gratitude!
Here’s a re-post about one of our best purchases to date. Two years later and this is still a toy we play with constantly. It doesn’t cause as many fights as it used to, but it is has been a favorite all the same. Sy drags it up and down the stairs for various games throughout the week.
We’ve had the Little Tikes Shopping Cart for about a year now and it still causes massive fights when there is more than one two year old in the room. I see this as a successful purchase. The little red cart has room for a lovie in the seat basket and lots of groceries in the main compartment. Sy and her pals love to pretend to go shopping, or just roam the house with the cart and stock pile whatever they can find. After play group is here, I often find the cart shoved in the corner of my dining room overflowing with myriad random toys, placemats and other unimportant items like my car keys.
The cart has been known to cause massive strife during playtime. I often think I should have an army of them waiting on the deck for play group to avoid the chaos and chorus of “MY TURN” that erupts as soon as someone under three feet tall grabs hold of the thing. But then I roll my eyes, roll up my mothering sleeves and explain for the 412th time that sharing is, in fact, a good thing.
This cart is by no means a showcase of modern toy design, rather it’s a cheerful, bulky mass of colorful plastic. But its sturdy constitution serves its purpose. It allows Sy to shop, roll with her lovies or take it for a spin around the block without toppling over. It also cleans up really well so when she and her pals are pitching it all of two feet off the back deck into the dirt, it is no worse for wear. We’ve clocked miles worth of afternoon walks with this bad boy and the only thing to show for it are some slightly scratched up wheels. I hose it down from time to time and that’s about as far as my maintenance plan goes.
Move over Snack Trap, there’s a new spill resistant infant and toddler snacking cup that is both BPA and phthalate-free and manufactured in the good old United States of America; Sonoma, California to be specific in town. Invented by a grandfather of six and manufactured by a machine he built, the Munchie Mug is committed to child safety and parent convenience.
The Munchie Mug when dropped or turned upside down does not spill any little snacking treasures inside out onto the carpet, couch, backseat of the car, grocery store floor, etc. It is made of 100% recyclable polypropylene #5 and all FDA food-grade approved materials. The Munchie Mug is dishwasher safe and baby safe. The soft fabric enclosure overlaps to keep snacks in, and it is soft enough to not irritate little hands trying to get snacks out.
OK. Sounds good, right? But let’s get down to brass tacks - did my girl like it?
For those blissfully uninitiated into the World of Polly Pockets, “My Pollies,” as my daughter affectionately calls them, are miniature Barbie-like dolls—less busty, perhaps—with stretchy plastic clothes and tiny little shoes and accessories.
Our daughter first fell in love with these infuriating little vixens when she was about two years old, when her interactions with the dolls consisted of bringing them to us for outfit donning or removal. If you’re the parent of a little girl between the ages of two and eight, then you’ve likely uttered nasty expletives while wrestling a centimeter-sized rubber skirt onto a rubber two-inch tart. Or you won’t allow Polly Pockets in your home.
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.
OK, there are so many reasons to get this cool art project in a can: birthday, holiday present, or as a big sibling gift.
Eye Can Art began in Seattle, Washington as the brainchild of three professionals and moms. From the site: Each Eye Can Art kit provides a kid-tested project to delight your child’s imagination, and includes enough materials to experiment. Developed by professional art educators, Eye Can Art replaces the predictable craft kit with a journey of creative exploration based on the fundamentals of visual learning. Make dramatic-looking collograph printed images, multiple-layered drawings on melted wax, and Japanese-style brush paintings.
All kits provide high quality, washable, non-toxic art materials; enough to do the projects multiple times. The easy-to-follow instruction booklets provide clear steps to follow, suggest ideas to further explore, and show the work of professional artists who use the same techniques in their own work. Each kit comes packaged in a reusable, easy-to-carry container. Designed by artists with years of experience helping kids and adults explore together.
