Playskool Step Start Walk 'n Ride

Our little man is almost a year!  It's hard to believe, but he's all over the place - boys truly are a different animal than girls are.

He just started walking about a week ago, and I think that we have this toy to thank for a large part of it:  LINK

The Playskool Step Start Walk 'n Ride, $29.99, was a recommendation from a coworker.  It has two functions - you can collapse the green part above so that it's resting on the wheels, and it's a riding toy (baby can also stand beside it and push it).  You can also leave it as shown, and it will function as a walker.

Our little Peanut is short, only about the 3rd percentile for height.  Hence, putting this in the upright walker mode at first was a little too much for him.  He kept it down in the rider mode, and pushed it around by standing beside it.  I think he did this so much that he left permanent grooves in the carpet from his race circuit.  It helped him to stabilize and learn the basic walking movements while still giving him a sense of stability.  (It also made a wonderful bonking noise when he ran it into something stationary -- or his older sister.)  

He now loves to use this in the walker mode (even though he's able to walk on his own), and has also discovered the joy in riding it like a little car.  His little legs aren't quite long enough to push him, so his sister is happy to oblige pushing him around.  (Please forgive the phone pic - I didn't have my camera nearby.)

As you can see, that's a face of pure joy.  This toy is easily worth the $30, and is durable enough that it can be passed on to friends or family when Peanut outgrows it.  Our daughter actually also enjoys playing with it a ton pushing her dolls around, to the point where I have to remind her that it's a baby toy! 

Step2 LifeStyle Custom Kitchen

When our daughter A turned one, she decided to celebrate her birthday (or shortly thereafter) by breaking her arm.  Hooray, right?  Here's the proof:

Censored to protect the innocent

We had some supplemental accident insurance that rhymes with Schnaflac, and they sent us a check.  Since neither my husband nor I had broken our arms, it only seemed fair to spend the money on A.  She was already huge into pretend play, and loved the pretend kitchen at our nanny/daycare provider's house, so we got a similar one.  We went with the Step2 LifeStyle Custom Kitchen (LINK).  Here's the photo from Step2:

That's pretty accurate to how it looks set up.  Most of it comes assembled, except that the stickers were not on there.  My husband applied these when my daughter and I were not home, which is probably good as I am certain he said a bunch of words she shouldn't have heard.  Maybe some I shouldn't hear.  

Once the stickers were on, though, it was awesome.  We've had it for almost two years now.  This is how much A liked it the first day we got it:

Yeah, I earned this.

And she loves it as much today.  She mostly hid things in the baskets and put pans in the oven and on top when she was little, but at 3 she now has entire tea parties and pot holders and everything she makes is "too hot" and we can never ever eat it.  She adores it, and getting extra dishes and stuff was a great decision.  I'm a huge fan of pretend play, and it makes me happy to see that this toy encourages that so much.

The quality is very good - durable hard plastic, but no sharp edges to hurt little hands.  The little pan and pot that come with it make noise when put on the "burner," and ours hasn't had the battery wear out yet.  The little phone that came with this one has gotten even more mileage than the kitchen itself, it fits right in her hoodie pockets.  The little plates, bowls, and cups that came with the kitchen fit perfectly in the little drying rack and the pretend sink, etc., and they've been used to hold many a snack at our house.  I liked the way this was constructed in comparison with some of the other brands - the wood ones are very cute, but this is so easy to clean and durable.

Value:  $120.  Toy kitchens aren't cheap, yo, but they are a long-term toy.  If I had to figure some dollar-to-hours played ratio, I'm guessing it would be a lot less than many of our cheaper toys.

Child entertainment level:  10/10.  This is the toy that is the old standby in our house.

Practicality:  9/10.  This is pretty small.  Probably 2.5 feet across or so, and less than a foot deep.  (This is off of eyeballing, not off of anything official.)  It's easy to tuck into a corner, and easy to wipe down.

Regalo Extra Long HideAway Bedrail

In general it's not important to the context of this particular blog, but we do Attachment Parenting.  That's not to say, "Whoa, whoa, whoa - you didn't babywear and breastfeed at the same time?  Get the hell off my blog!"  That's just to say that the fact that we have bedshared with our daughter since she was little is relevant to parts of my review of this item, but I don't think it precludes the opinions I have from being pertinent to people who do/did not co-sleep.

As I mentioned, my daughter sleeps in bed with one or both of us, and has since she was very small (we do it very safely, there is such a thing, no debates needed on either side of the issue).  At the time, our bed was in the middle of the room - this wasn't an issue when she was the immobile little lump that newborns and small babies are.  Once she began crawling, however, we needed something in place to make sure she didn't do a flying eagle off of the other side of the bed onto the floor.  

We started with Magic Bumpers (LINK) when she first started rolling.  These fit under the sheets, and basically she'd just roll up against them and then roll back.  It was great.  When the aforementioned crawling began, however, we needed something that went higher.  We got the Regalo Extra Long HideAway Bedrail (LINK from Amazon).  I think it comes in white or white.  Didn't see anything else.  Here is it in their advertisement, looks like it goes about a foot above the bed, right?

We have a mattress that requires the deep pocket sheets, however (and I believe this kid above is sleeping on a piece of newspaper covering some plywood).  The installation was very easy, just thread the straps through a metal L-shaped bar.  The L-shaped bar goes over the edge of the far side of the mattress, with the straps going between your box spring and your mattress.  The problem with ours was that it only came about five inches or so above our mattress.  So, with a crawling infant who sees short walls that can be scaled as a challenge rather than a deterrent, it wasn't practical - it just meant that she had five inches further to potentially fall if she vaulted herself over the side.  So, at that time, we ended up going back to the Magic Bumpers and moved our mattress against the wall.

Now that A is older, however, not everything is Pike's Peak.  We really just needed to find something again that would prevent her from rolling off of the bed at 3 a.m. so that we could put the bed back in the middle of the room, as I was ridiculously tired of trying to make the bed with it pushed against the wall.

We brought back out the Regalo, and it's awesome.  Here's a picture of A tonight sitting in bed playing Preschool Monkey Lunchbox with approximately 7000 animals and blankets (any of which would be missed instantly if it were removed):

We have a queen in this room, and it really only has about 8 to 10 inches from the headboard and footboard respectively, so the length is great.  It's tall enough that she isn't going to roll over it, but short enough that she can still throw Curious George over it if she's pissed and doesn't want to go to sleep.  I've tried it on the full bed in her room (and we're inching slowly toward her staying in it), and it goes about 18 inches from the foot of the bed, giving her enough room to crawl down and out safely.  I'll have no qualms about moving it in there when she makes the transition to Big Girl Bed.

So, I guess my review would be that I wouldn't likely recommend this for smaller children if you're using it for the purposes of co-sleeping, but it should be great for a child old enough to have a rational fear of falling.  

Value - Ran about $30.  That seems equal to what's on the market, particularly for extra long rails, although it still feels a little exorbitant to me.
Child entertainment level - Not really relevant, she's not playing parcheesi against it or anything.
Practicality - 9/10