Do you have a Chuggington freak in your house like I do? Baby G doesn’t go anywhere without his Old Puffer Pete engine.
The show is cute. If you don’t know what it’s about - here’s my reader’s digest: bunch o’ little chuggers learning the Chuggington way of life on the rails. Merriment and lessons abound. Lil chuggers screw up, rise from the ashes and earn some badges via Badge Quest along the way. My kids (almost 6 and almost 3) LOVE IT. And don’t tell anyone, but I do, too. The trains aren’t too whiny, the lessons learned are not too heavy handed and it’s well animated. My husband points out that it’s incredibly fast paced with a lot of quick cuts. I point out that it has riveting plot lines.
But what’s the best part? The swag.
Since we posted this review of the Kidcraft Retro Blue Kitchen almost two years ago, we’ve learned from readers that it’s hard to find, if not impossible. Meanwhile, two years later, our little compact cool-looking galley continues to be a hub of play, particularly when the toddlers come over. Play kitchens are havens for two-year-olds. I am going to go out on a limb and say, if you have a two-year-old, get him or her a kitchen! Or get your spouse one (that’s a hint, Honey…). Okay, so the toddler’s kitchen is cheaper, and he isn’t likely to complain about counter space or the color of the cabinets.
Here’s the good news: the Retro Blue Kitchen is BAAAAAAAAAAAACK! In red! Personalized, if you wish!
And with some important updates.
1. Check out that faux refrigerator-door water dispenser!
2. It’s CHEAPER ($110 on Amazon) than the one we previously reviewed, and for an extra $10, you can personalize it (note to Honey: if you buy me a new kitchen, you can skip the personalization).
Santa only brings one gift per kid in our house, and he’s giving Baby G (and by default, his big sister) a big ol’ cardboard house. Imagination Box Co. makes groovy box houses that your little critters can gleefully deface with markers, crayons, paint, glitter, you name it. It ships flat, comes with a set of water colors and is only $24.95. You can order an extra set of paints for two bucks! Shipping is between about $8.00 and $20.00, depending on how fast you need it. Christmas is fast approaching, but Hanukkah starts on Friday. Giddyup!
Some Christmas years are about the Big Reveal: the Santa Set-Up that requires an All-Nighter reminiscent of college. Pretty sure the Kitchen falls into that category. My dad used to watch the Pope address his people while assembling toys for his five kids into the wee hours, according to my mom.
This year, for us is a ‘tweener. My girls can’t name Big Ticket Items they lust after, and we’re not so sad about it. That means they’ll receive a few small items, or the upgrades to already-haves. Our three-year-old will be the lucky recipient of a toy in the latter category: The Daisy Greenway Interactive Camper. The Camper is affiliated with the Mrs. Goodbee Dollhouse, which we reviewed earlier this year, and which has gotten more play in this house than…(avoiding joke invoking frat boys) any other toy this year among the three-to-four-year-olds. It helps that the dollhouse opens in a tri-fold, inviting friends to play on both sides. I can only assume that the Camper is similarly accessible. But it doesn’t really matter: this gift affords us the opportunity to set up both the dollhouse and Camper Santa-style: with all the accessories set up like a window display, ready to play with and begging for a kids’ admiration for attention to detail.
If you have a three-year-old and no dollhouse on site: Go Goodbee, with accompanying accessory sets. Your child won’t be disappointed.
Note: Amazon has this Camper toy listed for $50ish…but it’s cheaper at Target (I couldn’t find it online, but I got it at the store no problem).
My daughter is an epic mystery fan. For her ninth birthday, we went all out and had a Nancy Drew party. It was a huge hit. So for Christmas this year, it’s all about the spy gear. Of course that means her four year old little brother is also all about the spy gear, so here are a few of my favorite secret agent gift ideas. Spy stuff is HOT!
Sy had $24.00 burning a hole in her pocket from special occasions and birthday money. Yesterday was the day she got to spend it on anything she wanted. I let her decide: lovely, little local toy store or Target. You can only imagine which one she jumped on. Straight up that “exalator” and directly to the Bright Pink Barbie Aisle. I’d be too busy cringing if I hadn’t been a complete Barbie-a-holic growing up. And look, I didn’t turn out so badly, right? She told me that she really needed some “Boy Barbies” so the kids could have a dad around. I love that she considers Barbie role-playing all about the family; Barbie and Ken look like stand up parents, don’t they? I wonder when her playing will shift so that Barb is her peer, not her mother (because I totally look exactly like Barbie).
Sy picked three new dolls for our growing collection. First up was your garden variety Princess Barbie, whom she instantly renamed “Thalia”. Luckily she was bedecked in purple, Sy’s favorite color. She also rocks a pink crown and is therefore the most fabulous doll on Earth, according to Sy. Next doll to be pitched gleefully into the cart: Barbie Beach Party Ken. Your basic board shorts and muscle tee (an ombre version, at that). Sy is enamored with accessories, so the color coordinating glasses were a bonus (Princess Barbie is currently wearing them). Last but not least, PARTY STEVEN. He’s just another beach bum like Ken (even has a matching outfit in orange) but I couldn’t get past his name. Steven? PARTY STEVEN? Who names these dolls? Ken? Steven? Next on the list: Blaine. I mean, can they be more mainstream? Ken rolls with a hot chick named Barbie for chrissakes.* Can’t they at least throw us a FUN BOBBY?
*Did you know that Barbie let everyone know via her blog that she and Ken rekindled on Valentine’s Day? Who said romance was dead?
My two-year-old nephew is phenomenon. When I say phenomenon, I mean this little hard-headed barely-twenty-pounder can survive potential catastrophes like no other. Sure, he lands face down on the ground from time to time. Sure, he cries. But both the prostrating and crying are weapons he uses at will. He doesn’t cry from pain; he protests injustice.
He is a survivor. There is a great photo of the little guy leaping joyously off a picnic table. He lived. Dude, he dusted himself off and maybe even tried to talk a four-year-old into trying it. He’s That Guy. He drives his mom a little nuts.
Plus, he has a six-year-old brother he thinks he rivals. So his mama (errr…the Easter Bunny, that is) was smart to buy him his very own remote-controlled car, and an indestructible one at that.
Since Sy is allergic to dust mites, I try to avoid getting her yet another stuffed rabbit for her Easter basket. This year I picked up the awesome Indoor Gardening Kit from Green Toys for both Sy and her seven year old cousin. We have the tea set and it’s one of Sy’s favorite toys. It’s one of my favorite toys because a) it doesn’t make any noise and b) it’s made out of recycled milk jugs.
I’ll review them both after Sy gets the gardening kit.
I suppose I am a bit of a contradiction as a parent. I’d rather use hippie medicine for my kids, yet I have to give Sy things like albuterol, the elephant gun of steroids. I am not a fan of most Disney movies (male-dominated, mommy-killing, mean stepmothers) but Disneyland is one of my favorite places on Earth. I don’t push the pink, princess type toys, but boy do I love Barbies. I grew up with them and have many a fond memory. Yes, the are anatomically impossible and look a little vapid, but let’s be clear, they were good fun growing up. When my sister played, Ken always stayed home and Barbie worked. My Barbies were usually horse trainers, enjoying the great outdoors. My garage is filled with old school Barbies, Barbie clothes, Barbie cars. I recently pulled out the corvette and the Beach Bus (which Sy uses as a “zamboni machine” when we are ice skating in her room).
Sy had never really seen a Barbie before Christmas. I know, I know, how could I have kept it from her this long? I was looking for some new bath toys and came across the most random Barbie out there - the Barbie Surf’s Up Color Change Diver! Fun in the bath and a Barbie? And her bathing suit changes colors? And she has dolphins to swim with and diving gear? Sign me up!
For Christmas, my mother has a tradition of buying a toy for the whole family to enjoy. It’s usually something motorized; over the years there have been race cars and trains, remote-control boats and monster trucks. It’s always something that is opened last and will occupy everyone’s attention in the lull between gifts and dinner, when my brothers in particular could burn a little competitive steam.
This year, my mom bought three remote-control helicopters. You might have seen one at the mall, where I saw a few hovering before me like annoying mosquito/dragonfly combos controlled by the Store Demo Guy as I tried to efficiently complete my holiday shopping. I can appreciate them so much more now, even though I never really got to fly one: my brothers, my dad, my husband, and my brother’s friend (whom we adopted for the holiday) all jockeyed for pilot time as the rest of us marveled at just how far RC technology has come.
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: Here’s part three of my sister’s four part review series. Thanks, sis!
My daughter and I have very different opinions of the Zizzle Spotz Creator. She thinks it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread and has spent hours and hours playing with it. I think it is a relentless conspiracy plot to bankrupt well-meaning parents and to fill the world with lots of little plastic pieces. We’ve agreed to disagree.
That T loves the product is, of course, a good thing as self-directed craft-play is always welcome. On the surface, the Spotz Creator seems promising. The central ‘Creator’ console is made of strong extruded plastic in bright kid-centric colors and has smooth edges. The gears are big, the punch simple and the concept clear: put the parts into the obvious places, punch down, get Spotz (a little plastic ring with paper inside). You color/draw on the paper (it comes with translucent paper with little printed pictures to color and with blank sheets in case you want to design your own), cut it out square, put it in the top punch machine, line up the little plastic rings with the little plastic covers, push down, and PRESTO, you have a Spotz of your own making.
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.
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.
