Friday, June 03, 2005

Not a paid endorsement of Fisher Price products

Still trying to kick this illness thing. But my biggest concern is Noah. I don’t know how he could avoid getting my cold when his hands are always in my mouth. Let’s hope those breast milk antibodies are doing their damndest to keep him well. Cross your fingers for him.

I’m going to talk about balls now. Try to keep your mind out of the gutter. On Sunday while cleaning up I found a large super ball that the cats had been playing with. And I gave it to Noah. He loved it – the way it fit in his hands, the way it rolled, etc. I felt evil for having him kept him from the wonder of balls for so long. On Monday when Bella came to visit with her Fisher Price Ocean Wonders fishbowl with corresponding clear lucite fish balls – Noah was in love. So much so that I intended to buy him his very own fish balls on Tuesday. But our Toys R’ Us did not carry the fishbowl. However they did carry a few new Fisher Price toys that came with “Roll-a-Rounds” – which are clear Lucite balls with fun eye-catching accessories trapped inside. We got the Twirlin’ Whilrin’ Turtle. Noah loves it. We have practically worn the damn thing down in two days.

When I told my mom about how much Noah was enjoying putting the balls in and out of the turtle she said that babies go through a stage where they love to just put things in and take things out of containers. She said I could put just about anything in a plastic container and it would be instant entertainment for Noah. I decided to try it with those damn Fisher Price Peek-a-Blocks. A few words about Peek-a-Blocks – though they are cute, they are stupid for one main reason – not only do they not lock together when you stack them, but their rounded corners make stacking near impossible. What kind of blocks don’t stack? We have the Peek-a-Block Press & Go Train – but it always seemed a bit too advanced for Noah and since the blocks didn’t stack, the whole thing just sat in the toy box. But on mom’s advice I grabbed a plastic container and put 6 blocks in it. Noah now thinks I invented sliced bread. The crazy thing is that he isn’t so much for putting the blocks in and out of the container. I put the blocks in the container – and he picks it up and dumps them all out on the floor. Over and over and over again. I made sure to pick out blocks that made noise when you rattled them – because when Noah picks something up he almost always shakes it to see if it makes noise. He particularly loves the block with the ringing bell in it. So I guess the blocks aren’t altogether bad. The train however scares the bejezus out of him. That will have to wait for later. When he doesn’t think that plastic objects that move on their own are obviously possessed by the devil.

A new thing to file under genius. Remember me saying that our Evenflo car seat was defective and they sent us a new one? And remember I said that when Mark installed it he ripped off a clip that held on the seat pad? Remember when I said I had to call and see if they would send us a new seat pad? Remember that I am a complete and total moron? You should. Because it took me a good week to realize - "Hey - we still have the defective car seat and we could use the seat pad off of that one and ship the ripped seat pad back with the defective seat." Eureka! I sure hope Noah has more common sense.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's great about finding out about peek-a-blocks. My son's first words were "puh-pul baw" which were referring to a big purple ball that we bought for him. To date (at 15 months), he still says ball almost constantly. We have about 20 balls of all different sizes for him. His favorite activity now is to throw all of his balls over the gate and down the stairs to the basement door. If the balls actually hit the door he gets really excited.

He also loves his hippo that eats the peek-a-blocks. I really think that it helped him learn to walk. We didn't bust it out until his first birthday, though.

hazel said...

at the mention of your turtle, and the rollarounds, and in sharing your frustration about the peekablocks (we have the wagon), I went to our toys r us to see what neat new toy I could get bella. I got this gumball thing. you know who loves it? trent. like I had to tell him to let bella try.

she, however, doesn't quite get it. I think it might be a little too complicated. but since she loves to do whatever trent does (scream, dance, pound things together) maybe she'll get the hang of it by watching him.

NME said...

The block eating Hippo looks cool. Maybe in a couple of months.

HA! Once Bella gets a hang of the gumball machine you might have to buy Trent one of his own.

NME said...

The block eating Hippo looks cool. Maybe in a couple of months.

HA! Once Bella gets a hang of the gumball machine you might have to buy Trent one of his own.

Missuz J said...

My sister has this great toy that her kids love. It's hard to explain, but it's like a track that you--or the kid when he/she gets older--stack, and then you put balls in it and watch them roll down. I've seen kids from a couple of months to my 11 year old step son having a ball (cringe--another unintentional pun) with it.