Posts Tagged "cabin fever"
On bin men bothering and a whole lot of WOW
If you happened to be at our house on a Wednesday morning, you would be lucky enough to witness a now familiar part of our routine and an unmatched highlight of Kai’s week. For Wednesday, ladies and gentleman, is BIN DAY.
Kai’s ears pick up the slightest sound of their approach, sometimes from two or three streets away and with an audible gasp, will run to get his little chair from the other room to assume The Position at the front door. Crouched low, peering through the letterbox, Kai waits like the most dedicated twitcher in a hide, until finally the lorry reaches our house, waits until the bin men have disembarked and are JUST by our front door and shouts, either “Eh-oh!” if he’s feeling friendly, “Boo” or, my personal favourite, “RAAAWWWR!”. Now, to start with, this was brilliant as the poor bin men never saw it coming, and watching a grown, burly waste-disposal profession jump half-clean out of his overalls was always a good start to any day. But after a while, of course, they’ve become well used to their little Wednesday Watcher – the friendlier ones now at least feign surprise and give him a little wave…
Anyway, now I’ve set the scene you will finally begin to appreciate something of the excitement when I received an email from Tanya at WOW Toys. Tanya is a reader of my blog and just happens to be the MD’s wife, and after cleverly spotting one of their products in some photos I took a while back, offered to send some more out for Kai for us to review, more specifically a TOY BIN LORRY, (well, recycling truck!) by the name of Flip ‘n’ Tip Fred. Oh YES!
Now, we’re a big fan of WOW toys in this house, with the Robin’s Medical Rescue ambulance in the range being one of Kai’s very favourites, and the arrival of Flip n’ Tip Fred, as a well as Ronnie the space rocket and Harry Copter’s Animal Rescue helicopter went down an absolute storm here, in fact, when I first opened the big box I didn’t hear another peep out of Kai for the next two hours (total parenting WIN there! I got to drink a whole cup of tea! And knit!)
WOW toys are colourful, chunky, interesting and unique, perfect for older babies up to pre-schoolers and beyond, beginning as toys with buttons to press and doors to open for curious little ones, growing into role-play and small-world imaginative toys for older children. My favourite aspect has always been that they require no batteries, running on friction motors, and are really built to last – after 18 months Kai’s ambulance still looks like new despite playing with it almost every day.
Each toy comes with a really cool set of unique features and surprises. With Flip ‘n’ Tip Fred, Kai has literally played for hours making the little people load the recycling bins into the tip-able buckets and emptying them out the clicking door. Ronnie the rocket comes with a brilliant pull-cord countdown, which displays a countdown from 5 to 0 as it vibrates ready for take-off (we especially like the sandwiches on Major Tom’s control panel in the flip-open cockpit). Kai’s had a lot of play-value out of the Animal Rescue helicopter too – it comes with three animals that the helicopter can pick up magnetically before zooming off as you squeeze the motorised trigger to spin the rotor blades, before turning the self-light to deactivate the magnets and deliver the animals to their destination (usually from a great height if you’re Kai).
I can honestly say that Kai has played with these toys every single day since they arrived and I’m confident that these are going to remain firm favourites for a good while to come. I’m hugely grateful for Tanya getting in touch, thanks for making a little boy very happy indeed.
To find out more about WOW toys, each one featuring a great little video of the toys in action, and to find stockists online and in your area, check out the website, and don’t forget to ‘like’ on Facebook to stay up-to-date with new products and competitions.
Thanks for reading.
Summer Essentials
Today I am taking part in Mama Kat’s Writer’s Workshop for the first time. Lovely Kat sets up some writing prompts and prompts us to umm…write!
So I’ve chosen #5 - List your 7 most favourite summer items.
Now before I start let me just add how much I have enjoyed other people’s accounts of their favourite summer items. Air conditioning, industrial power fans, sunblock, sexy bathing suits. Feel like rubbing it in some more? For here in the UK our summer for the last month has looked like this…
So now I’ve set the mood and without further ado, here are my top 7 essential items for surviving our pathetic British excuse for a summer:
1. Umbrella-ella-ella OH
Or even better…
…to keep your hands free for frantic power walking around the streets with the pushchair in an effort to get your poor cabin-fevered child to nap, screaming at the lights to change to red in time so you don’t have to stop and inevitably wake him up.
2. Funky Wellies
For puddle splashing and surviving random flash-floods in Sainsbury’s supermarket carpark.
3. At least 10 indoor clothes airers
To dry the mountain of washing accumulating in your bathroom that has been hung outside to dry, got wetter and been brought back in again at least half a dozen times. Usually I’m quite Zen about my washing getting caught in the rain. It began wet…it has returned to wetness… I have lost nothing – that sort of thing. I’d usually just leave it out till it dried again but as using that strategy may mean a single load of washing takes about, oh I don’t know, two months to dry, I’ve had to resort to turning my house into a 1930′s Chinese Laundry.
NOTE: Extremely beautiful new nappies!!! Which thankfully dry very quickly and are absolutely my new favourite thing…ever! Expect a gushing evangelical blog post about them very soon.
4. Laptop
My ultimate surviving rainy days stuck indoors must have item (along with #5). To be kept on to allow ‘tweeting to stay sane’ therapy and sneaky blog writing whenever the baby is distracted (see #6) or temporarily trapped in his ‘den’ under the dining table.
5. Chocolate
‘Nuff said.
6. Toys encouraging obsessive, repetitive and absorbing play
(to allow more time for #4 & 5)
Most notably this toy:
Kai will happily play with this for HOURS. Put the rings on. Take the rings off. Throw rings at mummy. Push rings under sofa and into other irretrievable places while mummy is paying absolute full attention and not nodding off. Honest.
Other rainy day obsessive Kai games include: balancing the pig on the tractor game (don’t ask me why – it’s always the pig), devil jigsaw and Kai’s all time favourite, the take-things-out-of-a-container-and-put-them-back-in-again game.
7. A Watch
To count down the hours until the husband gets home from work and I can meet him at the door with a whiney, peanut butter covered baby…
…and run.
