The Chronic Consumer

You’ve all seen those Heely shoes, right? They’re the ones with a wheel in the heel, and have been around for several years now. Well, the 9-year-old kid who lives next door has a pair and tirelessly cruises up and down the block doing tricks or whatever. Of course, my son thinks this is the coolest thing in the world, so he’s been bugging us for a pair of Heelys for a few months now.

The thing is, I think he’s a bit too young for the shoes. He’s 5 1/2 right now, but he’s small for his size and not coordinated enough for shoes like these. I can already see all the skinned knees — or worse — that would result if I bought these.

Unfortunately, the “debate” part of my title comes in because my husband thinks we should at least let our boy try the shoes. He’ll never learn coordination, balance, etc. if we keep him off scooters and skateboards until we think he’s ready.

In other words, it’s two against one here, so I’m probably going to lose this battle. Sigh.

I’ve got several friends with children a few years older than my son, so I often get hand-me-downs of toys, games, and books that the other kids have outgrown. One of the items I recently received was a CD-ROM called Snap! Phonics, which is designed to help children ages 4-8 learn about word formation, pronunciation, and letter sounds. Since I’m currently attempting to get my son more interested in reading on his own, I decided to give this CD a try.

Snap! Phonics stars Curious George (which was a surprise considering that the famous monkey’s name doesn’t appear anywhere on the packaging) and is built around the basic premise of Curious George going to the circus. Once inside the circus tent, there are a range of different activities that your child can choose from, such as story time, vowel sounds, and word building/spelling.

My son is five and a half, so we’ve been working on phonics quite a bit recently. As a result, I expected him to do fairly well with this program, but was disappointed to see that many of the activities were just too difficult for him.

For example, in the story time section activity, a simple sentence is shown on the screen, with an animated sequence right next to it to illustrate the action. One such sentence was, “Bip takes a bath” or something like that, and the graphic showed a baby elephant sitting in a pool. The child’s task was to click on the two words in the sentence that “have the same sound as the word ‘boot’.”

Now this might be a decent exercise for a child that already knows how to read, but it was too big a leap for my son to connect “boot” to “b” to “Bip” and “bath”. So basically, I had to sit there and moderate the entire time, rephrasing the questions to make them understandable: “Which words in the sentence start with a buh sound?”

Most of the other activities on this CD-ROM are similarly difficult for children at the lower end of the stated age range (4-8), but would likely be fine for older children.

The one activity that my son enjoys the most on this CD is called Peanut Pickup. Essentially, the child uses the arrow keys on the keyboard to move an elephant through a maze, picking up dropped peanuts while giving chase to vendors carrying pictures of words that begin with certain letters. As this activity relies on sounds and pictures rather than actual reading, it’s one that a five year old can actually do.

Since we’ve only been using the Snap! Phonics CD for about a week, my son is still interested in it and still asks to play every day. But I have a feeling that once the novelty wears off (which should happen soon), he’ll forget that we even have this disc!

Overall, I think Snap! Phonics has decent activities for 7-8 year-olds, but is not the type of CD that younger children would be able to use unsupervised — unless they’re already fairly well-versed in phonics. Keep that in mind before spending money on this program!

I’ve been seeing this Hershey’s Chocolate flavored Bubble Yum in stores for a couple of years now, but I never worked up the nerve to try it before. It just sounds kind of disgusting, ya know? In fact, I couldn’t even believe that someone came up with the idea to mix bubble gum and chocolate, so I did some digging — and learned that Hershey’s acquired the Bubble Yum brand in 2000. I guess this makes the combination somewhat more logical, but still… I was scared!

At any rate, I finally bought a pack the other day. The gum is totally dark brown, which makes it look rather unappealing, like a little turd or something. (Sorry, I guess talking about bubble gum brings out my juvenile humor!) I took a whiff before popping the thing in my mouth, and thought it smelled a lot like a Tootsie Roll. Not surprising then, that it tasted a lot like a Tootsie Roll, too, albeit a softer, less chewy version.

The flavor lasted for just a couple of minutes, and then it tasted like any other worn out piece of bubble gum.

Overall, this Chocolate Bubble Yum wasn’t as nasty as I expected, but it’s definitely not something that I will go out of my way to buy again. After all, if I wanted a Tootsie Roll, I’d buy Tootsie Rolls!

(Click photo to enlarge)

My mom is as much of a bargain hunter as I am, and one of her favorite money-saving strategies is to buy clothes out of season. As a result, she recently purchased a fall/early winter/spring jacket for my son to wear a few months from now. It’s called the Zero Xposur Midweight Hooded Jacket, and though it lists for $36, my mom got it for a mere $14.40 — a great price for a jacket like this!

The Zero Xposur Midweight Hooded Jacket is a very cool looking piece that my son immediately fell in love with. It’s reversible, with one side being a nylon weather-repellent shell, and the other being soft fleece.

With the nylon on the outside, the jacket is perfect for cool or cold inclement days. There are plenty of Velcro closures around the wrists and down the front zipper area, making it easy to keep out the cold, wind, and rain. There are also elasticized inserts in the hood and cuffs, which allows for a better fit in those places.

With the fleece side out, the jacket is perfect for spring or fall. There’s a fantastic design patch featuring motocross and skateboarding action, as well as a stitched logo at the left chest.

Kids love pockets, and the Zero Xposur Midweight Hooded Jacket has plenty of them. In addition to two slash pockets on the front, the jacket also has a pocket for an MP3 player (complete with headphone port), as well as a cell phone pocket — both of which close securely with Velcro.

Moreover, the jacket features a D-ring at the lower right side that can be used for attaching gloves.

As I said, my son fell in love with this jacket immediately. He usually doesn’t like the cold weather, but he’s already looking forward to the end of summer so he can start wearing his brand-new Zero Xposur jacket. This garment seems to be made of quality materials, has an awesome design and sweet features, and is ultimately a great buy at $14.40. Highly recommended!

My son went to play at a friend’s house over the weekend, and the other boy had a trampoline. The boys bounced around on that thing for hours, tired themselves out, took a break, and then went right back for more. My son loved the trampoline (that was the first time he had ever tried one).

The problem is that now he’s asking for one of his own, but unfortunately, we just don’t have anyplace to put it. Our backyard is far too small to accommodate one, and every room in the house is too crowded to add something like that.

Maybe we can get one if we ever move to a single-family home, but for now, it’s a no go. Sorry, buddy!

I was reading an article today about cell phones that have a special gps tracking feature built right into them. The article was positive in tone (none of that government conspiracy theory stuff), and mentioned how this sort of device could be useful for parents worried about their children’s safety.

I actually agree with that, and want to buy one for my son when he’s ready for his own phone in a few years. So my question is, do most of the latest cell phones come with GPS tracking capabilities? Or is this feature not as in demand as the article made it seem?

I suppose I could go research this on my own, but I’m feeling a bit lazy today! Anyway, I still have several years before I need to buy my son a phone, so I’d say I’ve got plenty of time to find what I need…

If you thought that fiber optic cables were only good for telephone, television, or Internet applications, think again. Fiber optics have been used in a wide array of consumer products for years, including everything from Christmas trees to wigs to toys.

In fact, some of my son’s favorite toys are various fiber optic wands that we’ve purchased over the years. He just loves waving these things around and watching the lights change colors and weave trails through the air. They actually are pretty cool, so it’s easy to see why kids would be mesmerized by these things.

Anyway, if you’re looking for a cheap, fun way to keep your children entertained, check out some fiber optic toys the next time you go shopping!

I bought one of those View-Master 3D Slide Viewers for my son a few months ago, and in my November 11 review of the product, I told you that he didn’t much care for the toy. He was amused by it for a few wekks, but after that, it was relegated to the bottom of his toy chest, and he hasn’t really touched it since.

Apparently, my mom missed that review, since she bought my son a similar toy for his birthday last month. She went with a slightly different version, though: the Super Sounds model that has the ability to play sound effects, music, and character voices.

The Super Sounds viewer comes with a demo reel with a few different pictures to give you a taste of what kind of other slides are available. For example, it had a dinosaur, Sponge Bob Squarepants, and a couple of other characters. This demo reel had a soundtrack as well, so it was possible to hear a few different sound effects along the way.

The Super Sounds viewer is supposed to play special reels that come with their own audio cartridges, but I guess my mom didn’t read the packaging too closely because she ended up buying extra reels that were intended for the regular 3D viewer. So while it’s still possible to see the pictures on the reels, it’s not as much fun without a soundtrack. Worse yet, the demo reel soundtrack plays while viewing standard reels, which is very jarring and discordant. (That’s obviously not the fault of the manufacturer; I’m just telling you of our own experiences.)

Anyway, I haven’t bothered to buy any actual Super Sounds reels and audio cartridges yet (mostly because my son hasn’t even asked), but I will likely do so soon. I just checked on Amazon.com and it looks like these are available for between $8-$9 each, and come with 3 picture reels (21 images in all) plus the soundtrack. That’s not a bad deal.

Overall, I think the Super Sounds 3D Viewer is a cute toy, and the soundtrack certainly spices up the viewing. Nevertheless, I still feel that this kind of thing is a bit simplistic for kids these days. I wish that wasn’t the case, but unfortunately, it is.

We’re raising my son to be bilingual, so for his birthday, my mother-in-law sent him a Nintendo DS game from Japan that is designed to help kids learn how to read and write the Japanese hiragana script. The game is called Anpanman to Asobo: A-I-U-E-O Kyoushitsu, and actually seems to be a very good learning resource.

Anpanman is a cartoon character that is very popular with Japanese children (usually boys). In this software title, Anpanman and his friends help kids learn their hiragana (equivalent to the ABCs here in the States, I guess) through various minigames. For example, there’s a game where the kids have to identify a specific letter in a lineup after the narrator calls it out, and there’s a game where the kids have to tap the correct letter on the screen as it scrolls downward with a bunch of others.

There’s also a component that helps kids practice writing the characters by having them trace the shapes on the screen. This is only somewhat helpful, as the game doesn’t correct mistakes or even alert kids that they’re making mistakes. If you trace the letter, it moves on to the next one, regardless of whether you traced the lines in the correct order or direction.

And finally, there are minigames that have nothing to do with letters or writing at all. For example, there’s a game where kids have to identify the differences between two similar pictures or where kids play as Anpanman to try to defeat the enemy Baikinman in some kind of Pong-like event.

My son, who just turned 5, seems to be the perfect age for this kind of game. He finally has enough dexterity to control the stylus to a sufficient degree to go through all of the exercises, and actually enjoys playing. It seems that he’s actually learning stuff as well, which of course is the point to this game.

Obviously, if given the choice, my son would still rather play Mario Kart or Kirby Squeak Squad, but at least with Anpanman to Asobo, it’s a lot easier to get him to “study” now!

I’d heard a lot of good things about the children’s book Love You Forever by Robert Munsch, so I decided to buy it for my boy’s collection. I purchased it online from Amazon.com, where it currently has a 4-star average rating out of more than 700 customer reviews. I read a couple of the reviews, both positive and negative before buying, but didn’t really do too much other research.

The book tells the story of a mother’s unconditional love for her son as he goes through various stages of growth and development: troublesome toddler, sullen teenager, etc. The mother is shown to sneak into the son’s room at night and rock him back and forth as he sleeps. She continues to do this even when her son is a full-grown adult. Then, as the mother ages and gets too old to rock her son, the roles switch and the son rocks the mother.

Now this might sound like a sweet story in theory, but as executed in the book it just came off as uber-creepy. This has everything to do with the drawings by Shelia McGraw, which show the mother crawling into her son’s room on all fours to rock him even when he’s a teenager and stuff.

Look, I tried not to be weirded out by the book, and I really did want to like it. But it just seemed so odd to me that a mother — any mother — would climb a ladder to enter her adult son’s bedroom and rock him in the middle of the night.

I ended up not reading this to my son, and will give it away to the local library the next time they collect books for their annual book fair. I’ve got nothing against people who like Love You Forever; it’s just not something that works for me.