One of the very first gifts we received when our son was born was the Munchkin Magic Mozart Cube.  I am a big fan of classical music, so I was intrigued by this toy and wondered if my son would like it.

I shouldn’t have worried, he absolutely loved it.

Each side of the cube has a large button for six different instruments. When you press the button, that instrument begins to play one of five pre-selected Mozart songs.  The side also lights up in synchronization with the instrument, if my memory serves me correctly.   As you press different instruments, they join together to form a more orchestral effect, and you can add or delete instruments at will.

Babies are utterly fascinated with this toy, and older children are drawn to it as well.  I mean, who doesn’t like music?

I was reading some of the reviews on Amazon, and a person who is some sort of sound engineer criticized almost every aspect of this toy, from the supposedly lousy sound quality to wondering what the agenda was behind the selected musical pieces.  Is it suddenly a bad thing to expose your offspring to some of the less-recognizable Mozart tunes?  And yes, the quality isn’t exactly that of a Bose sound system, but it’s good enough.  So to crabby engineer person I say, relax, it’s a frickin toy!  No need to get all engineer-y and anal on us.   I might add that the negative review was in the minority, to say the least.

The toy is fairly heavy and well-constructed, but unfortunately it was unable to withstand the G-forces delivered by a three year old who threw it at our entertainment center, where it promptly hit one of the sharp corners (of course!) and died shortly thereafter.  The Munchkin was very unhappy the toy was broken, but it was a good lesson to learn about treating things we like with care rather than using them as projectiles.  At least, that is what I tried to tell myself.

I highly recommend this toy to anyone with a young child in their life.  Oh, and it just so happens to be on sale at Amazon!

You just never know when it may come in handy. Like, when King Tut is trying to drive you insane by the pebble torture and force you to dance the Batusi. Don’t you hate when that happens?

I was out enjoying the fresh air a couple of days ago, and I noticed a mom carrying her newborn in a Bjorn.

But what really caught my eye were these fabulous faux fur baby booties by MiniMink.  Listen, that baby’s feet looked so cute dangling out of her carrier, I wanted to eat them.  And I am not normally an ooogie-ooogie type of person over babies.  Well, over my own, but not really anyone else’s.   So it’s saying a lot that I sort of started to drool.

Truly hath it been said that the days between Christmas and New Year’s are the sweetest of the calendar, and for one reason only: presents!

You get to play with the kids’s presents.

Or is that just me? No. No, loyal reader, it is not. And how do I know this? I know this because our faithful friends across the Pond have informed me that Hunky Prince William is having the very devil of a time getting his WII out of the hands of his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Or, as we may now call her, the QuWIIn.

From People.co.uk:

William’s girlfriend Kate Middleton bought him the £200 gift for Christmas – but he now has to share it with his grandma.

A Palace source told The People: “When she saw William playing a game after lunch at Sandringham she thought the Nintendo looked tremendous fun and begged to join in.

“She played a simple ten-pin bowling game and by all accounts was a natural.

“It was hilarious. William was in fits of laughter. He was enormously impressed at having such a cool gran.

Indeed, she’s not the only one who’d like to get her hands on William’s WII.

Looks like somebody’s grounded!

moar funny pictures

Have you ever been indecisive about buying a pair of shoes for your child?  Have you ever stared at them and thought to yourself, if only they had a great name, I would purchase these in a heartbeat!

I didn’t think so.

But apparently the marketing gurus at Kenneth Cole REACTION (uh, their caps, not mine) are under the impression that a saccharinely cute name will distinguish them from the rest of the pack.

Unfortunately, the word “distinguish” can be open to interpretation.

Whip ’N Skip

For those parents who want to give their children early exposure to, er, alternative occupations. No horizon is too broad for Kenneth Cole!

A Faze ing 2 Dress Shoe

I’m not sure exactly what they were going for with this one.  A word play on “amazing?” But why doesn’t it make an ounce of sense?  And you lose me whenever you pretend u r 2 kewl to spell correctly.

Yum n Yummer Sandal

How did they know?  How did they know that making a  not-so-sly reference to a horrible Jim Carrey movie would make me want to get these? Bonus points for making up a word that doesn’t exist in the English language!

Blink of a Pie Canvas

Kenneth Cole, I’m beginning to think that your marketing department is harboring some sort of grudge against you.  Sending down a couple of pizzas now and then couldn’t hurt.

Ace of Braids

Sounds like this one was made up after one too many losses at the poker table.  It seems the bitterness didn’t stay in Vegas like it was supposed to.

And just to show that the girls have no monopoly on the dubious names, I present:

Hima Lion

Seriously, these people have no shame.  Even if it came with my own personal Sherpa, I wouldn’t get these because the name is just that bad.

I think there are some 6th graders who can come up with names that are just as good, if not better than the ones here.  I bet they’ll work a heck of a lot cheaper, too.

Remember our good friend, the gravity-free tot from Friday? It’s time to announce the winner of the weekly caption contest:

Jennie Says:
January 5th, 2008 at 4:27 am

Superman finally had to admit that he WAS the Babydaddy….

Congratulations to our winner. In an unusually crowded and typically challenging field, a hint of scandal proves to be the way to catch raincoaster’s attention, not for the first or last time. And now, the imaginary presentation of the virtual shoes for the hypothetical ceremony. In this case, we’ve chosen the supersexy Lumiani Cortina for our superhero-themed contest. Who could resist your powers in these boots?

Last week’s poll about the content here on Teeny Manolo was heard loud and clear!  I wasn’t so surprised to see that you wanted more of children’s fashion, shoes, and bargains, each of which grabbed a large share of the votes. But it was a bit of a shocker to see that suggestions for activities/toys were also desired. 

Hey, we are here for you!  It can and will be done!

“Celebrity babies” was one of the lowest vote-getting categories, which leads me to today’s Teeny Poll:

more at twiigs.com…