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Strollerderby
Surprise them with something different this year.
Now that Thanksgiving dinner is out of the oven and leftovers are in the refrigerator, another holiday tradition has begun: Shopping. For many, the barrage of items available for sale, especially those geared toward children, can be overwhelming. If you’re looking for a unique gift, something beyond the standard Barbies and Legos, the 5th annual Toy Insider Holiday Toy Guide is a good place to start.
This year, the panel of toy experts teamed up with Women’s Day Magazine to suss out not just the hottest toys, but the ones most appropriate based on a child’s individual interests and skills. These are toys that help kids learn, become more active or enhance their social and emotional development.
The list is extensive, but here’s a few that caught my eye.
Teach My Baby, 6 Months+
The first in a series that also includes Teach My Toddler and Teach My Preschooler, this baby learning kit is divided into four sections—First Words, First Numbers, Self, and Sound & Touch. The makers claim this system has everything you need to “teach baby the basics,” including nesting blocks, finger puppets, puzzles and more. (And it comes in its own carrying case!) Continue reading »
Soon this dress will be on your floor!
Your kid prances around in a princess costume. Oh the Disney princesses! You wait two beats, watch as the dance gets boring and watch as that magic costume to gets chucked to the ground and turned into a plain old plaything yet again. To you and me, a princess dress hitting the floor is same old, same old, to the animators of Tangled, Disney’s new take on Rapunzel, making a heap of cloth look real is a complex animation problem that took months to solve. Continue reading »
The clever folks at Make magazine have dug up an Etsy seller offering chemistry themed crayons. These are awesome: brilliant colors tagged with shades straight from your 7th grade chemistry class.
These crayons are perfect for the Baby Einstein who just won’t be satisfied until they’ve shaded in their technical schematics with colors like lithium, rhodolite and olivine.
My child has a large collection of stuffed animals that she’s collected over the years. The vast majority of these stuffies are piled up on a chair in her room that was placed there for the sole purpose of holding stuffies. But on her bed are the chosen ones. These are the special, can’t-sleep-without-them stuffies that she’s been dragging around since her toddler days.
But there is one favored stuffed bunny that has been separated from the pack. He’s pink and white and lives in my room, on my bed. She gave me Pinky several years ago after I solemnly swore to cuddle him each and every night for the rest of my life. At first, I did it just to humor her. But now? Well, now I automatically reach for Pinky when I turn out the lights each night. Sometimes Pinky ends up on the floor, but most mornings I awake to find Pinky safely snuggled in my arms. Continue reading »
If your little girl thinks Barbie is boring and the Moxie Girlz are too mainstream, perhaps she would prefer something a little edgier. No, not Bratz. Those girls may be making a comeback soon, but there are some new dolls in town that make those pouty-lipped ladies look positively preppy. They are Draculaura, Clawdeen Wolf and Frankie Stein, the girls of Monster High. Continue reading »
Barbie really can do anything. The fantastic, plastic doll now has an incarnation as a secret-camera toting spy.
Video Girl Barbie comes with a hidden camera in a necklace. The tiny camera can shoot up to 30 minutes of video. While Mattel is pushing the toy for “budding filmmakers”, it’s uses for budding spies, private eyes, blackmail artists and lawyers should be obvious.
AOL’s ParentDish reported today that Burger King is trying to draw kids – and hurried parents – in for breakfast by offering a kids’ meal replete with plastic toy. The Chicago Tribune’s Breaking Business blog posted the story yesterday, noting that the meal is to consist of a child-size breakfast sandwich, apple slices and calcium-fortified apple juice — weighing in at 11.5 grams of fat.
While Burger King is boasting that the meal conforms to fat and calorie standards set by the Council of Better Business Bureau’s Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative, it contains 18 percent of the recommended daily allowance of fat. A serving of Quaker Quick Oats using 1/2 cup of skim milk contains only 3 grams of fat, or 4 percent of the recommended daily intake. Busy parents, take note: Oatmeal is fast and easy to make and is also low in sodium and high in fiber. Not to mention that it tastes a lot better than rubbery breakfast “meat.”
No matter how you feel about fast food in-and-of itself, the real reason for concern here is, of course, the toy. As Paula reported last month, a watchdog group has pans to sue rival fast-food chain McDonald’s for using toys to lure small children, citing that “deceptive marketing… is illegal under consumer protection laws.” Do we really need to reward or bribe our kids into eating breakfast? What’s next? Giving them an embossed certificate just for waking up? GOOD MORNING, JOHNNY! YOU DID IT! YOU GOT OUT OF BED THIS MORNING! You get a gold star. Now hurry up and get dressed so we can wait in line at Burger King to get some apple slices… and the latest Twilight toy. Continue reading »
Lori Garcia 
Joslyn Gray 
Amber Doty 
Julianna Miner 
Monica Bielanko 
Sierra Black 
Meredith Carroll 
Carolyn Castiglia 
Sunny Chanel 
Madeline Holler 
Rebecca Odes 
Danielle Smith 
Danielle Sullivan 
Katherine Stone 
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