Playtoes Pram Shoes Review and Competition Winner

Yesterday my tiny little niece took her first ever flight.  11 hours.  Ug.  Thankfully, she had a pair of these very fun, bright pram shoes by Playtoes to keep her entertained on the flight.

Playtoes asked us to be some of the first to try out these wonderful fun shoes and I volunteered by 5 month old niece to be a tester.  The Playtoes butterfly shoes arrived in a very groovy presentation pack and made a wonderful gift.

Playtoes are currently available in either a blue bumblee design or these pink butterfly design shoes.  The shoes themselves are a very soft pram shoe designed for pre-walkers from 3 months upwards to keep feet warm and protected when you are out and about.  But Playtoes are so much more than just shoes...

The shoes are designed to stimulate your baby's senses and at 5 months old, my niece is just at the age when she will discover her feet.  This is a time for exploring sounds and textures.  The Playtoes shoes have lots of different textures such as soft, leathery, crinkly, smooth. The shoes have rattly bits and crinkly scrunchy bits.  The butterflies are attached with velcro and are designed to encourage your baby to pull them and tweak them as they discover their feet.  Reaching down and exploring those feet is great exercise for small muscles that are just starting to learn to work hard!

I love the attention to detail - especially the cute embroidery at the back of the heel.  And I think the shiny toes and high-contrast black and white soles are both strokes of genius which I know will attract a baby's attention.  And it is nice to know that, with all the excitement going on outside the shoes, that the inside hasn't been neglected - the lining is a really soft cotton.  I really hope that the Playtoes pram shoes provide enough entertainment during that long, long flight!

Playtoes cost £22 and are available direct or through amazon.

A couple of weeks ago I ran a competition to win your own pair of Playtoes pram shoes - the winner was Catherine Miller.  You can keep uptodate with Playtoes on the Playtoes Facebook Page or follow Playtoes on Twitter .

The Original Didicar Review

The Didicar is great fun - just the kind of thing that has brought our family together over the last couple of months.  The Didicar is a unique ride-on toy suitable for family members of all ages and we LOVE it.

The Didicar has no motor or batteries and doesn't require any fuel but you also don't need to pedal or push.  Lift your feet up onto the car and then simply turn the steering wheel from left to right to get it to move.

Within minutes of unpacking the Didicar, Lara had instinctively grasped the steering (it is just as easy to move backwards as forwards) and was manouvring her way through the hallway and around the dining table.  It works really well on our hard laminate floors (although with heavier riders such as Daddy, it does scuff the floor a little!) but outside on the patio and pavement it is awesome.

The Didicar is suitable from about 3 years right up to adulthood (maximum capacity is 120kg) and we have tried riders of all ages on it over the past few weeks.  This is Lara's cousin enjoying herself... Lara's grandparents (and of course parents) have even tried it out both inside and outside the house and ever time it brings smiles to everyones faces because it is so easy to use and great fun to ride.  I think Lara finds it very liberating because she has been really struggling with her balance bike recently and so she enjoys the power and independence that she feels from being able to pootle around on the Didicar... I think she feels that she is really driving!

You can buy the Didicar online and through a small number of childrens toy retailers for around £50.  It comes in 5 different colours and you can even buy sticker packs to personalise your Didicar.

I can quite honestly say that the Didicar is one of the most fun toys that Lara has ever owned and I expect us to get many years of entertainment from it.

Sassy Baby Toys Review

How did I not know about Sassy baby products before now??? They are bright, high-contrast yet colourful, easy to grasp, full of textures and exploration points and totally perfect for babies like Holly who are starting to explore the world around them.

Sassy baby products are distributed by East Coast Nursery. Sassy make quite a phenomenal number of different baby toys and accessories for babies from birth upwards.

All of Sassy's toys are designed to try and encourage your baby to use their sense and explore touch, sound, smell and taste. Techniques that they use to do this are high contrast patterns, bright colors, symmetry, multiple textures, specific color language and sounds. Holly has been trying out a few of their products. All of their products use plastics that are safe for baby and they are incredibly durable - they FEEL good in your hands.

Sassy Flutterby Teether

I Love: The mixture of different textures on the teether and lots of bright colours that make it look as lively as a butterfly can be.
Holly Loves: The bumpy textured wing to chew on and the soft and squidgy water-filled area.

Sassy Ring Rattle

I Love: The fact that it is easy to grip and it combines colours with high contrast so is suitable for small babies whose eyesight is still developing.
Holly Loves: Shaking it about (A LOT) and bashing it against things, she likes the noise of the rings rattling against other toys.

Sassy Click Clack Keys

I Love: Watching Holly's face when she realises that SHE made the toy make a noise by pressing the buttons.
Holly Loves: Shaking it like nothing else on earth. This is holly's No. 1 favourite toy right now.

Sassy Rescue Vehicles Bath Toy Set

I Love: The little lighthouse whose light glows red when it is floating in the water - it fascinates me!
Holly Loves: Watching her big sister play aeroplanes in the bath, delivering Holly's bottle of shampoo on the hammock it carries!
Lara Loves: Squirting her baby sister with water from the little tug boat!

I am really impressed with the Sassy baby range and will be hunting out some more pieces for Holly for Christmas.

  

Learning Through Play – Lara Wields A Knife

Have you ever had one of those moments when you've taken your child to a friend's house and they've spent the entire visit playing with a single toy that you KNOW you are now going to have to buy, or the world will probably end? We had one of those moments a few weeks ago. Lara discovered a 'chopping' set while at her cousin's house. She was totally enthralled. Myself and Mr. B. locked eyes and at that moment I KNEW I was going to have to buy Lara the same toy.

I soon found the toy I was looking for online at Early Learning Centre and, at the earliest opportunity I visited our local branch and spent a whopping £13 on what is, quite honestly, my best investment to date!



The toy in question is a set of wooden vegetables & fruit, a wooden loaf of bread, a wooden chopping board, knife and tray. The toy is so simple and that's the beauty of it – no annoying plastic bits for Lara to rip off, no batteries required and no tinkly music. Fabulous. Each of the toy foods is stuck together with Velcro and the knife can be used to 'chop' them into pieces. Each wooden piece is sturdy and tactile – it feels like a toy that will last us for years.

And the best bit about the new toy is that Lara, at 21 months, is quite happy to sit for hours chopping vegetables. I've seen her sit for over 40 minutes chopping the fruit and veg, sticking them back together again and re-chopping!

I love this toy because it is helping Lara to learn about food preparation and goes some way towards my own new-year's resolution of teaching Lara to cook. Of course, Lara is far too young for me to teach her how to chop real carrots, pears, fish, tomatoes and oranges but she is old enough to start learning the lessons she will need to grasp sooner or later. In a few short weeks Lara has already demonstrated an understanding of balance – choosing to place her chopping board now on a table or chair instead of wobbling it on her leg or the arm of a chair. She also quickly learned that the knife is much more effective when held the correct way up and that applying pressure to the top of the knife can help when something seems too tough to chop.



Perhaps the best lesson she is learning is to be careful with her fingers. If Lara does accidentally place her fingers below the blade of the toy wooden knife, it won't hurt her but it does come as a surprise. Using her toy chopping board, Lara now tells herself to be “careful Lara” if she does get her fingers in the way.

Lara will be helping me prepare the dinner before long, just you wait and see!

This post was written for the Tots 100 Monthly Blog Hop where this month's theme is 'Learning Through Play'.

The Sunday Review – Humf IPod / IPhone App

It may perhaps be a bit early in Lara's life to be introducing her to children's Ipod apps? At 19 months old, Lara doesn't really understand the concepts behind even the simplest game and doesn't yet possess the dexterity required to accurately use the touch-screen of my Ipod touch or the self-control or attention span required to really follow a game. That said, she is more than happy to watch Mummy and Daddy play on her behalf and smiles a big beaming grin from one cheek to the other each time she sees me open the new Humf Ipod game.

Humf, if you don't already know, is a top pre-school children's television programme currently shown on Nick Jr. Lara discovered it just before Christmas. We like it because of the bright colours, the funny creatures and the uncanny use of family names such as Wallace (our cat) and Uncle Hairy (Mr B.'s nickname from his cheeky nieces and nephews).

The Ipod game was released last month. It costs just £1.79 and has so-far offered us an awful lot of those beaming grins! Lara smiles the minute she hears the music playing from the Ipod.

The Humf game includes a series of short activities that are suitable for pre-schoolers to play on their own. There is a colouring game which Lara is pretty good at – you select your colour, and then select which part of the picture to fill. The furry thing game is my favourite – you can create monsters with different faces, eyes and bodies! There are also matching games, dot-to-dot, car racing, bathtime shoot-em-up (with a water pistol) and counting. One of Lara's favourites is the balloon game where you have to test your wits by 'blowing up' balloons and letting them go before they pop. Lara likes to use her finger tips to pop the balloons anyway!

You can find our more about the Humf IPhone game at P2 Games and you can buy it from the ITunes Store

Images courtesy of P2 games.

The Naughty Step – A Meme

I was tagged a little while back by the glamorous Cheshire Mum in the Naughty Step meme.

And so, I have chosen to send Conservative MP Michael Gove to spend some time on the naughty step to consider his behaviour and I hope, that when he comes back, he'll have come to his senses.

Used under the Creative Commons License from the Conservative Party

For those who don't know, Michael Gove is the UK education secretary. He also happens to be the MP for the next constituency along from me so I got to see his name plastered up in great big blue signs for many months. I am sending him to the naughty step because of his decision to scrap plans for new and improved playgrounds throughout the whole of Britain.

The labour government introduced a 10-year plan to improve play opportunities for children. The Playbuilder scheme gave grants to around 132 local authorities to build or re-build play areas for children to offer more children the opportunity to play safely away from home gaining vital exercise and social opportunities.

In recent budget cuts, Michael Gove has written to all of these local authorities to cancel plans for all of the playgrounds on which work has not already started, or where there are not overwhelming reasons to continue. This decision directly affects the local area of Barkham and Wokingham to which I am about to move.

I understand that the new government have difficult decisions to make with regards cost cutting and money saving but I feel like this was too hasty a decision, too easy a decision for him to make. Are children's playgrounds a soft target? Why is it that these are some of the first areas to suffer from the government's sweeping cuts? Isn't there any middle ground? Can't we afford just a few new playgrounds?

So Mr. Gove, I'm sending you (with your funny face) for some quiet contemplation time on that naughty step to see if you can't come up with a better way to save money.

I tag Claire, Hayley and Kay. Who is going on your naughty step?