Toys

Your DC gets an incredible present haul around her birthday and Christmas/Hanukkah. But too much of a good thing can be overwhelming. Too many gifts, too little time, too small an attention span. So spread the wealth.

The founders of Project of the Month Club understand present pacing. Club members receive a different self-contained art project every month. That means they send you everything needed to complete the project. No need to go scavengering for your own Elmer’s. You can select from different categories, including Mix ‘n’ Match (step stool, game board, craft caddy) for kids ages 4-8 and Master Builders (woodworking) and Future Designers (jewelry kits, perfume, purses) for slightly older kids. Coming soon: Pint-Sized Painters and Seismic Scientists. If a monthly project seems like too much of a commitment, you’ve got other membership options: bi-monthly, quarterly and 4-in-a-row.

It’s just like a wine club. Sort of …

Visit projectofthemonthclub.com.

Your television responds so beautifully to your commands, delivered by remote from across the room. Wouldn’t it be great if there were a remote to control your kid? Now there is!

The Control-a-Kid remote contains all the settings that a parent needs to keep a tiny or school-age kid in line. With just the push of a button you can get your kid to stop screaming, smoking, or sulking. You can press “Tidy Room,” “Say Thank You,” or the ever-popular center-button option, “Grow Up.” There’s a nice button to make the kids go play, too.

Do I have to tell you this doesn’t actually work? No, I didn’t think so. It’s still funny. And, on the upside, it doesn’t require batteries.

Control-a-Kid Remote, $6.99

If you have a little LEGO lover in your house and a LEGO store somewhere near you, maybe the little one’s birthday party should be there this year. For a surprisingly reasonable $125, 10 kids can invade the LEGO store for a party, which includes goody bags, invitations, thank you cards, a few LEGOs, a LEGO host wise in the ways of brick-building, and a $100 gift card (you’ll need it–typically each kid at the party builds a themed LEGO object from a kit, which you must also buy). Want to throw the same party at home? It’s $115, plus the cost of buying whatever LEGO kits you want to let them have at. Oh, and the home party kits don’t include the host, so you’ll probably have to do a lot more reading of instructions and directing the kids as they build their Pirate, Bionicle, Power Miner, or Star Wars creation.

There are LEGO stores in 21 states, but if you happen to not live near one, you can still put together your own LEGO party. The bricks are for sale in almost any toy store, and there are plenty of sellers on Etsy who make things like customized LEGO invitations, LEGO cake decorations, and party favors like T-shirts and LEGO soaps in interesting scents–”monkey farts” sure would appeal to most seven-year-old boys I know. You want to go really crazy? Commission a LEGO mosaic portrait of your child.

For more details on official LEGO parties, see lego.com.

Remember Fashion Plates, that ’80s toy with interchangeable plates of a woman’s top, middle, and bottom that allowed you to create different outfits? There are a whole bunch of different games out now that are essentially the same idea, but seem awfully mature for smaller girls. A bit too sexy, a bit too Bratz-ish to please many moms.

Magic Cabin’s Fairy Design Kit is just a shade sweeter. The kit comes with 130 templates of fairy hats, cloaks, shoes, hairstyles, and accessories; kids trace over them to combine, and then color them in with the 12 included color pencils or 12 watercolor pencils (the color smears into watercolor paint when wet). Add glitter (included), name your brand-new fairy, and pop her into the portfolio (included) for safekeeping.

Fairy Design Kit, $19.98

Back in the 18th century, our relationship with the Brits wasn’t so hot - the whole American Revolution thing. But today we’ve got a lot to thank the UK for: Maclaren strollers, fax machines, penicillin, steel-ribbed umbrellas (a.k.a. bumbershoots), Burberry and Jude Law, to name a few. Now we’re getting some new hot wheels from across the pond.

Early Rider, already popular in Europe, is a light-weight, learner bike specifically geared toward toddlers and preschoolers. It’s got no pedals. Kids ride it Fred-Flintstone style, walking and jogging along, coasting when they feel like it. The point of the bike is to concentrate on learning to balance; kids can work on gross motor skills and gain self-confidence before throwing in pedaling. These British bikes weigh between seven and 11 pounds. All three versions of the Early Rider are made from Forest Stewardship Council sustainable birch, have an embossed flame and faux leather seat pad. Of course, with a bike this good-looking, Junior will need suitable headgear to match.

That’s when you turn to Nutcase, a Portland-based helmet company. They make a line for kids (toddlers to age 5) called Little Nutty. Each helmet is made from an ABS shell and with an EPS shock-absorbing liner. The helmets are one-size-fits-all and have a spin-dial fit system. One of the company’s co-founders was a creative director at Nike. No wonder these helmets have got such great visuals. The newest Little Nutties are Flower Power and Paint Fight (pictured), but you’ll also want to check out the 8 Ball, Dots and Urban Caution designs.

Ride, baby, ride.

Early Riders are available at earlyrider.com, and Little Nutty helmets at nutcasehelmets.com.

Remember back when Crayola had a peach-colored crayon called “flesh?” Ah, unconscious racism is so funny! Crayola renamed that color “peach” in 1962 after the civil rights movement cranked up, but it’s still difficult to find shades that approximate human skin tones besides peach-colored.

Enter Lakeshore Learning Materials’ People Colors Crayons, a neat set of 24 colors in shades from alabaster to deepest brown, as befits a world where ethnicity has never been such a groovily intermixed stew. Lakeshore sells most often to schools and institutions but they sell to anyone on their website. The People Colors crayons are available in chunky sizes for tiny hands, or skinny sizes for older kids. If you buy a dozen sets there’s a bit of a price break. Outfit the whole school!

People Colors Crayons, $5.95-8.95

From the fun-things-you-see-on-Etsy file, two handmade pieces of special interest to Mommy. The first is this extremely beautiful crocheted Childbirth Education Doll, made to your eye and hair specifications, and complete with a tiny baby, with a detachable umbilical cord and placenta. Baby can go up inside Mommy, and get born, over and over again. See, Lila? This is how Mommy had you. Push! Push! This doll is $150.

And of course, no baby’s room is complete without a Handcrafted Placenta, made of felt, yarn, and, of course, including an attached umbilical cord. The placenta is a steal at just $17.

It’s the ingredient that could’ve saved so many marriages, so many friendships, so many business partnerships, not to mention countless rock groups. “It” is the ability to communicate one’s feelings effectively. No time like the present for kids (and maybe your DH!) to start learning.

Kimochis is a line of “toys with feelings inside.” (Kimochi means feeling in Japanese.) The newest member of this introspection-inducing, plush posse to debut is Kimochi Cat. She is described as knowing what she wants and can even be a bit bossy. (Sound like anyone you know?) This can lead to a “cat fight” and the ensuing angst and sadness. That’s why she comes with five bandages plus three soft feelings disks: happy, cranky and curious. Each “feeling” has the name of an emotion on one side and the corresponding facial expression on the other. Additional packs of feelings are sold separately. Aided by the accompanying “Feel Guide,” you can use Cat to help your pride and joy, through play, “learn to use tone of voice, body language and appropriate words” to express herself in positive ways during heated moments, which in turn can develop her sense of self-awareness and self-control.

Think of this as a chance for you and Junior to take a welcome break from working on her IQ to pay a little more attention to her EQ … arguably the more important but under-celebrated “Q.”

Available at kimochis.com.

Everyone loves Blabla Kids’ line of soft hand-knit stuffed animals (the colorful sock monkeys in striped shorts are particularly popular) and now the company has branched out into baby dolls. Like the sock monkeys, Blabla’s baby dolls have soft and squishy bodies, stitched-on yarn hair, and embroidered features (no buttons for babies to choke on!). They are produced by the same Peruvian artists that Blabla employs to make the stuffed animals, so you needn’t fear supporting some sweatshop somewhere.

Blabla even makes a line of high-quality cotton clothing to fit the dollies; the simple pieces are made with muted colors and easy shapes that approximate a modern kids’ wardrobe much better than the typical Barbiefied clothing palette of shocking pink, bright pink, and eye-searing pink. Oh, and Blabla’s choice to make several dolls with brown skin makes us happy, too.

Blabla Classic Doll Babies, $44, blablakids.com.

There’s a new version of the ABCs to learn these days, only it doesn’t have a catchy tune, is associated with plenty of health hazards and contains letter combos such as DEHP, BBP (phthalates) and PVC (vinyl). It’s hard enough keeping track of what these mean, let alone which products contain them.

Enter HealthyStuff.org, a new website from the Ecology Center, a Michigan-based, non-profit environmental organization. The site just released the biggest database ever of independent tests of toxic chemicals found in everyday products. It covers 5,000 consumer items, including toys from its two-year-old predecessor, HealthyToys.org. Car seats, cars, back-to-school products, pet accessories, even women’s handbags, were all put to the test. Researchers were looking for the presence of lead, cadmium, bromine, mercury and arsenic plus phthalates and PVCs. Each subject is rated - high, medium or low - according to the level of toxic chemicals found. Below are some highlights from the database:

*More than half of the car seats tested contained one or more hazardous chemicals.
*56% of back-to-school supplies contained PVCs and 22% contained detectable levels of lead.
*Lead was detected in 75% of the more than 100 plastic women’s handbags tested.

And don’t worry, for the non-chem majors, Healthystuff.org details the health risks posed by the various toxic chemicals for which it’s testing. One great feature of the site: You can nominate products you believe Healthystuff.org should evaluate.

Power to the people.