Ersatz Electronics

Thumper has a tendency to launch himself toward any screen that might be out and glowing, particularly the Yeti's work laptop.  While it's adorable and all, it gets tiring with all the craning and leaning and wrestling, so eventually I decided maybe Thumper should get his own child's version.

Random aside: I'm sort of playing this "screen" thing by ear.  Current recommendations suggest no "screens" before age 2, which sounded simple enough when I first read them.  When Thumper and I were in a newborn haze and he was mostly asleep (and couldn't see across a room) I watched a fair amount of TV (lots of Murder, She Wrote, which I caught myself telling Thumper was "the ol' M She W").  As he's gotten older, that's pretty much stopped, partially to avoid TV and partially because when he's conscious, I'm occupied.  During the day we usually have Pandora playing.  At night, the Yeti and I might watch some TV, but it's practically in the background.  Thumper is just not a sit-and-watch baby.

A tiny handheld glowing screen, though, that's another matter.  I'm partly at fault, because I love taking photos of Thumper and he loves looking in the mirror, so he loves when I pull out my phone and switch it to self mode.  But if the Yeti is holding his iPad or working on his laptop, it's instantly the most interesting thing in the world.  And I'm not sure how I feel about, say, iPads, so I figured a plastic iPad-shaped toy that glows isn't any worse, at least.

My original goal was to get a toy laptop, because the thought of Thumper sitting next to the Yeti with a little laptop flipped open was frankly adorable.  A search of toy laptops was quite the disappointment.  The whole point of these "mini-me" toys is so that the kid can pretend he's like his parents, right?  So how does something like this fit the bill?  It's not remotely laptop-shaped!  I just wanted something square that lit up in some capacity and had buttons to mash.  Opening and closing is a bonus.

I decided to move on to either a smart phone or tablet, and ultimately grabbed one of each.  The phone was mostly because Thumper's decided that my phone's sole purpose is to exist for him to look at himself, and he's whined when I've used it for, you know, talking.

I wound up with the Laugh and Learn Smilin' Smartphone from Fisher-Price.  It's pretty cute, the songs aren't any more annoying than any other product for children, the volume is low enough that you could see your kid holding it up to their ear without damaging them, and overall I think we'll be getting a fair amount of use out of it in the future.  However, the buttons are kind of all one piece to preserve that "touchscreen" look, and they're just a little stiff for my almost-six-month-old's random swipes.  The "home" buttons at the bottom are sensitive enough, but still the phone is taking a temporary back seat to...

The VTech Tiny Touch Tablet.  It's the same basic idea as the phone; the "apps" are actually little buttons, and the "home button" is a trackball.  Touching any of these triggers light and sound.  The buttons are slightly more sensitive and the whole thing is a little bigger and brighter, so right now it seems to hold Thumper's attention longer.  However, I've got to say, the songs are really, truly obnoxious.  They barely have a melody and the singer is like nails on a chalkboard to me.  I have siblings and niblings (love that word) so I knew obnoxious toys were par for the course in having a baby, but VTech really went above and beyond in this regard.

I mostly had to buy it based on the reviews.  The reviews in that Amazon link, where people are angry that the $20 toy is not an actual tablet, are hilarious. My personal favorite (edited slightly): "This is a BABY toy [...] In the picture it shows wifi bars on the "tablet" screen.  Its a sticker."

Because I have not yet done actual research on child development I still have a knee-jerk reaction that too much flashy stuff might be bad or overstimulating (and no clue if that's true) so the tiny tablet only gets pulled out once a day or so.  I think that's better anyway, because it keeps the toys new.

Okay, if the tablet were playing Smetana I'd probably pull it out more.  Seriously, that singer somehow manages to sound atonal while being on-key.  Thumper doesn't seem to mind, though:

All well and good, but this doesn't seem to have Plants v. Zombies