April 6, 2007

Review: 1-2-3 Tetherball

I realize that some babies may love a toy while others hate it. But I must tell you about a new toy we added to our household that Andy just doesn't care for. The 1-2-3 Tetherball lights up and makes noises when your baby bats at it. You can adjust the ball so that it's either right on top of the stand or hangs off some. It sounded like a great cause and effect toy, and I thought that Andy would get a kick out of it. But he really could care less. The toy quickly became boring for him, and he was more interested in chewing on the base. At first I wondered if the toy was just not a good fit for him, but I actually think this is more of a design issue. It says in reviews on Amazon that it's very sensitive and would light up and play for no reason. That is true, but it also would not respond many times to the batting of Andy (and later me as I tried to get it to do something). After one night, it ate through the batteries because the lights kept going on after I thought I had turned it off (it must have been just the sound I stopped). And Andy just doesn't care about hitting a random ball around for very long, even if it does have little balls inside of it. We haven't tried it without the base yet, but I'm regretting this purchase. In the future, I will definitely rethink my spontaneous purchases when I go into Babies 'R Us.