You are viewing the Reviews category
Good Children’s Movies for Toddlers and Young Kids
Recently, I started thinking about how many movies I’ve tried to show my now three-year old daughter, and how many of those films she just never got into. It isn’t that these aren’t great movies, they are, it is just that for a young toddler with a short attention span, and love for action, color, and fun, some movies just are not well suited to kiddos.
So, I’ve started compiling a list of the great movies to show children, as well as a listing of what movies from Disney classics, to Pixar movie cartoons, belong in the home library of every parent with small children.
You can see the current list here: Best Movies for Kids
I also recently wrote up a page at another website detailing the Disney movie, The Emperor’s New Groove, which is one of the best kids movies for toddlers thanks to a fast-pace, fun characters, and plenty of action. In addition, the villain, while plenty scary and evil for those of us a little older and more comfortable with those topics, is surprisingly non-frightening for youngsters who find her more funny than scary.
Rechargeable Batteries and Baby’s Mobile and other Toddler Toys and Kid Electronics
When it comes to being a great dad, one of the important tasks is keeping all of the children’s toys, electronics, mobiles, music makers, and games stocked with working batteries. Nothing makes this job easier than rechargeable batteries.
With rechargeable batteries, the worst case scenario is that your toddler just has to wait a little while for the batteries to charge. With regular batteries, you might have to explain to your kid that you don’t have the right batteries but you’ll try and remember to buy more next time you have the chance.
Of course, if you forget, then you’ll have to see your child’s look of disappointment that Dad forgot to buy new batteries, and deep down inside, you’ll worry that it seems like you don’t care about things that are important to him.
Trust me, every time you see rechargeable batteries on sale, buy some. Try to shoot for around $2 per AA rechargeable battery and you’ll always be getting a good deal.
Weak Rechargeable D Batteries and C Batteries
There is one thing to watch out for when it comes to rechargeable batteries. Major battery companies have decided to be deceptive rather than make quality rechargeable D size batteries and C size batteries. Whether this near-fraud is due to not wanting to make good rechargeable C batteries because the prices would be too high (maybe $8 or $10 each) or whether it is part of some conspiracy to keep their profits up by making people think that rechargeable batteries aren’t as good a regular batteries, I don’t know.
Look on a AA-sized battery and you will find that most of them have 2400 or 2500 mAh. That means that there is 2500 mili-Amp hours in the battery. It sounds complicated, but basically what mAh means is that if you had something that used up one mili-Amp of power each hour, a 2500 mAh battery would theoretically run it for 2500 hours before running out.
Look at a regular alkaline battery and it will be labeled 2500 mAh or maybe 2400 mAh. Look at the rechargeable AA-size battery and you’ll see a similar number. There is an exception. Some battery companies make different power AA rechargeables which means that a cheapo retailer that doesn’t care about their customers can buy the lower power rechargeables for cheap and then advertise their “great price” without pointing out that you are buying the lower power ones.
Stay away from rechargeable AA batteries that aren’t rated near 2400 or 2500 mAh.
Where it really gets sketchy is with C and D sized batteries.
The regular alkaline D batteries are typically in the neighborhood of 12,000 mAh. But, the rechargeable D batteries are only 2,500 mAh, or the same power as a AA battery!
The worst part is they charge you a lot more even though it is the same battery! Search online and you’ll find that people have cut open rechargeable D batteries to find that what is inside is a AA battery with an outer case to make it look like a D battery.
Technically the battery companies aren’t doing anything wrong, but they sure aren’t going out of their way to point out that you are getting 20% of the full D-size battery power when you buy a rechargeable D battery.
Save your money and instead buy adapters that fit over rechargeable AA batteries and use them for your C and D battery needs instead. Or, go over to All-Battery.com and find rechargeable D batteries that have 10,000 mAh or better in them instead of being ripped off by the brand name battery companies.
I’ve had really good luck with the guys at All-Battery.com for my stuff, including the brand of rechargeables they carry “Tenergy” I think it is. Use the link to try them out. (Yes, I get a teeny-tiny commission of you buy something, but I could get more money recommending someone else. I’ve actually used them and never had anything bad happen 
Best Online Toy Store For Great Clearance Deals
I really like shopping at Fat Brain Toys, and I do poke around Amazon from time to time, but I just found this place today and I love them for this Toys Clearance Sale page. That page of onsale toys that is clearly broken out by not just brand but also individual show or movie is on AllAboardToys.com, a new website that I just found.
Now, don’t get me wrong, today is litterally the first day I have ever been to the site so I have not bought anything from them yet and I am not making any recommendation or comment on their products or service yet. However, this is THE BEST ONLINE TOY SHOPPING WEBPAGE EVER CREATED.
Why?
As any parent knows, just because your daughter loves Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, does NOT mean that she loves all things Disney. In fact, she might HATE certain things like the movie Cars because one time there was a box of cereal with a picture on the front of a little Mickey Mouse toy, but instead it had the tow truck from Cars inside instead. Kids don’t care about fine print or what is on the back, and they don’t forget either. Every time we pass a box of that cereal in the store she points and says, “That’s the kind with the wrong toys.”
Note to cereal manufacturers. You might want to rethink your marketing strategy when it comes to what you include inside your boxes. You might think that kids will keep asking their parents to buy your cereals over and over again until they get what they want, but actually, they’ll remember that you screwed them over and they won’t like it. (Again, they don’t care about whether anything was technically accurate or honest, the picture on the front is the truth for them.)
Where does All Aboard Toys fit in all of this?
From time to time I like to buy new things that have her favorite characters or whatever on them. Generally, I do not buy big elaborate toys but rather smaller ones that can bring joy for a long time AND provide the comfort of the familiar when we go to new places like restaraunts or hotels or whatever. Thus, a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse plate, or fork, or shirt, is a nice find. But, I hate the drudgery of going through 823 toys that aren’t right before finding the 3 that are.
All Aboard Toys fixes that problem by sorting not just by a big category like Disney, but by individual shows and movies. My daughter loves Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Finding Nemo, and Monsters Inc. but does not like Cars and really doesn’t know anything about any of the others. So, it is SO refreshing to see an online retailer that gets how their customers actually shop AND that does not change their sorting and categories when they put stuff on sale or in clearance.
On both the regular pages and the clearance pages, you can choose from Finding Nemo, Scooby Doo, Toy Story, Backyardigans, or whatever your child is into and the items pop right up with no extra junk and no shady “used” or “third-party” retailers like on Amazon.
My cart is already stuffed with great things that I didn’t even know were made because they were burried too deep in the rubbish on other toy websites for me to know that there are actually several Mickey Mouse Clubhouse playsets, not just the ubiquitous garage and “suprise” sets that I’m not really a fan of.
Once I trim down my order enough to submit it, I’ll let you know how it goes for the rest of the shopping experience.
Powered by ScribeFire.
They Might Be Giants Sing Children’s Songs
If you went to college during the 1990s, you probably at least heard of a band called, They Might Be Giants
If may surprise you to know that these days the band writes, sings, and records children’s songs
The cool part is that instead of the dopey or sappy children’s songs you usually get, these are just fun songs for children. So, you can listen to them too without going crazy.
Check out some of their albums here:
—
Christmas Toy Reviews From a Real Dad
My daughter got tons of toys. Friends, coworkers, and, of course, family, came out of the woodwork to give her presents. I guess everyone loves buying toys from young kids. So, keep an eye on this space because there are toy reviews galore on the way.
Search
Other
Link It, Fav It, Share It
