In a bold effort to introduce children to a lifelong habit of expensive gear purchases, Orvis has rolled out a fly rod for kids. My First Real Fly Rod comes with rod only for $89 - add on the reel for $149. The 5-weight rod is for kids ages 8 and up, and should be able to reel in anything light - like trout or daddy’s baseball cap.
I’m all about teaching my kids to fish - as the saying goes, “teach a man to fish, teach a man to lie about the length of the fish he caught”, but it’ll be a long time before we get into the mechanics and subtleties of fly fishing, especially the notion that it’s more about enjoying the rhythm of the cast and the scenery than the actual landing of fish. Our very first lessons will be about why exactly we might not have caught anything today, with excuses as diverse as wind conditions, barometric pressure, air and water temperature, lack of hatching bugs, river depth, flow, turbidity, and “somebody fished out this hole last week.”
Filed under Utility Belt.
Get them to clean their room at high decibels with the Mommy Megaphone ($39). It includes both a speaker and a siren, and a volume control so you don’t have to get hoarse requesting the kids to go down to the ccorner and get you smokes. Features include:
- Weather-resistant and baby resistant.
- Rugged hi-impact ABS construction in case you throw it.
Not even going to think about that last one. No word if they’re planning to add a Papa PA System to the lineup.
Filed under Utility Belt.
Blik designs Mario-themed wall decals to return your child’s room to 8-bit splendor, with both Super Mario and Donkey Kong. For $75, each package includes three sheets, with up to 24 different reusable decals.
Personally, I’d prefer decals from Frogger, because I am a French Blogger.
Filed under Crib Notes.
*Update Below*
I remember these fondly from my childhood, and then they seemed to disappear from the kids’ scene. What, inchworms aren’t cool, or are the toddlers so busy riding ATVs that they’ve forgotten about old Inchy?
Radio Flyer’s Inchworm is back, at least in the UK, where you can pick one up for the steep 70 pounds sterling. For age 2-5, or anyone else who’s ready for some serious Bounce N Go action.
Update: in breaking inchworm news, loyal reader HBD pointed out that the Inchworm could be had for $44 stateside at Sears. The price in quid must be high because of some sort of insect-transportation tariff they have in Europe. Thanks HBD!
Filed under Hotwheelz, Toys In the attic.
Because it’s incredibly important for your child to understand high definition TV, you can print out an HD TV Coloring Book from the cool, irreverent NonToxicReviews.
Learn about HD, Blu-Ray and various other digital items from Heidi, the HD Hippo! It’s quite funny, and tells people like me, who are supposed to pretend to care, all about HD. And who can refuse a free coloring book? I’m hoping for additional items in the set, like
Infant iPod!
Wii and Your Wee One, and
Texting Toddlers!
Did I miss any?
Filed under Uncategorized.
When Rudy and I travel to pick up Atari at preschool we are mobbed by lots of little grubby fingers that have probably seen a lot more boogers than soap throughout the day. I gently announce to “move along, nothing to see here,” but usually one of them gets a little grope in. Kids, they like babies, who knew?
In a future world, we won’t have any need for verbal communication. Just press a button and you’ll be able to SMS to your neighbor’s, friend’s, or partner’s brain, easing the strain that comes from human interaction. Until that time, My Tiny Hands offers a gentle little “fuck off” stop sign you can lash to your baby when out in public. Red, pink or blue, only $4,75, y se vende el rojo en español también.
Filed under Crib Notes, Dirty Deeds, Utility Belt.
Modcloth sets a new measurement on the adorability scale with these tape measure animals ($5). You can get a bear, dinosaur or elephant - they come in a variety of colors, but the meanies online will pick the color they send to you. So be careful, or you may end up with the yellow bear or the pink elephant (but only if you drink too much).
They’re 3 inches tall, but I see no indication of how long the tape measure is - hopefully long enough to reach the ground.
Filed under Utility Belt.
Cambridge Temperature Concepts Ltd, a British concern started by smarty pants researchers from Cambridge U have developed the DuoFertility, a device will use remote temperature sensors to determine when a woman is ovulating.
alert(”hello world”)
The device includes a small rubber patch that gets stuck near the armpit and can take some 20000 temperature measurements, which transmit data to a remote scale.
Looks like an awesome way to perfect the rhythm method! Also I gather from the symbols on the left side of the device, you can predict what religion the child will choose (crescent - Muslim; cross - Christian; heart -Zoroastrian; drop of blood - Vampire).
Initial price looks to be about $1200, and will be available in Britain this fall.
Filed under Utility Belt.
The folks at Leap Frog sent me the Tag Reading System, which arrives in stores tomorrow. The Tag Reader looks like a large pen. At the end there’s a small infrared camera, which recognizes items it points to on the Tag books. In addition to reading the stories out loud, each page of the Tag books has a game, and special little Easter Eggs, i.e. if you click on the drawing of a monster, it will let out a roar. The Tag Reader has 16 MB of Flash memory, and can hold the audio for 5 books at a time. Read our exclusive Offsprung review after the jump.
Read the rest of this entry »
Filed under Edumacation, Toys In the attic.
Swedish writer Uzi is editing the Graffiti Coloring Book. It’ll include 63 black and white sketches from prominent Scandinavian artists. So that’s where all the graffiti went.
There are a few sketches already online from Complex. My favorite is the angry rat with a cell phone, glaring at the subway train which is passing by (and grinning like a cat).
$10 to preorder it on Amazon.
Filed under Edumacation.
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