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Knowing which products are the safest for our kids to use can be very difficult. There are recalls on toys all the time - toys we expect to be safe for our kids and enjoy watching them play with.

While they might occasionally put a toy in their mouth, and we just hope that it doesn’t have lead in the paint (as in the recent Thomas The Tank Engine recall) or the metal (as in a host of children’s jewelry recalls), we may be giving our kids something that’s dangerous for them that’s actually meant to be put in their mouths.

Please take some time to check out some wonderful articles about the best sippy cups to serve your children’s’ drinks in. If you use bottles or will be using bottles, please also find out the best bottles to use.
Thanks to Jeremiah and Jennifer of ZRecs for such a complete roundup!

Thanks also to bitmapr for use of the sippy cup photo.

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A funny thing happened on my way to visit the Little Capers web site for the first time…

My children came running in to the room shouting “Hello Captain Mommy! Red Leader and Yellow Leader reporting for duty!”

Turns out they were playing pretend with daddy, only instead of capes they were wearing color coded chip-clips for badges. Other days when playing superhero, they take my clothes out of the closet or worse, they use their beautifully crocheted baby blankets from their grandmothers.

Little Capers are positively adorable, not to mention the perfect solution to my childrens’ dress up woes (ok, really my woes- I’m tired of finding my nice sweaters saving the world one snag at a time ).

Little Capers, as explained on the website,

are alternative Super Hero shirts that come with detachable capes. We felt that there had to be a better option than clipping a dishtowel to his shirt, or the commercial polyester pajamas and tees.

All of the shirts are 100% cotton and most are available in a long-sleeve or short-sleeve version. Some of the capes are shiny and some aren’t, but it seems that they are all detachable. There is even a version of the shirt available for infants and toddlers, but it does not have a cape.

My daughter already has her eye on “flower hero,” though I happen to think they are all equally as cute.

I especially like the idea that they are super-hero neutral. No tie-in to any commercially branded character. This allows them to be whoever they want to pretend to be.

And no trashing of blankies or my good sweaters! It looks like they are machine washable too, which none of our other dress-up clothes are.

Imagine - dress-up clothes you can actually toss in the wash! Cool idea. This could be a real hit!

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I recently received a request from one of our readers - Lacy - for the rest of you.

I have recently set up a fort swing set combo in my backyard and would like to add some adventure to it. I was wondering if you could get your readers to help come up with ideas to create a gadget / control panel. I have a toddler that loves buttons, levers, and gears and want to provide a panel for her to play with, so she can imagine it being anything she wants. I have planned on searching for an old keyboard and knobs to add to it, any ideas would be helpful.

It sounds like a fun and challenging project to create, one that will allow Lacy’s little girl hours of imaginative play!

I do have some questions for Lacy about the requirements for the panel, which I’ll post below. However, I want to let your creative wheels get started spinning. Be sure to check the comments for more on what she’s looking for.

1. Are you looking to use specific materials, possibly to match the rest of the fort?
2. What size would you like the completed panel to be?
3. Are you looking for an idea for a completed panel or just ideas for gadget-y supplies that a person could use to create a panel?

I’ll add more questions - and Lacy’s answers - to the post as I find them in the comments.

Got your thinking caps on?

Now GO!

Flickr photo from nalilo

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I have some other posts in draft form that need to be completed - some have been waiting for more than four months! - but I came across this product today that I just had to share with you!

CuVid are educational DVDs that star your family members, with digital photos that you upload in a few simple steps.

Now, if that isn’t cool enough, I really appreciate their family-focused mission - it’s straight on with ours at Great Family Gadgets!

We are on a mission to bring families closer together, making a positive impact on as many lives as possible.

We want to provide parents with the most meaningful, educational, family-friendly, and personalized video content possible, while making sure it is as easy as possible to make and use.

Not only is the site simple, yet colorful, it’s very easy to use. Setting up an account took less than one minute, and getting the sample video completed really did take only five minutes (I timed it)!

In less than 10 minutes, you and your kids can be watching a sample of Mommy or Daddy (or Grandma or Grandpa) hiding at the beach, singing “Head Shoulders Knees and Toes” (though it’s a different tune than I know), and being inside of a sand castle.

If your kids are like mine, they’ll want to watch it over and over. And then they’ll want to have you do each of them. And then everybody else they know.

Thank goodness it’s fun and easy, and pretty quick. The hardest part was choosing which picture to use for the face.

Was there anything I didn’t like about it?

Well, from the sample video, when they showed the photograph of the ball it didn’t seem to fit with the style of the rest of the video. However, this was just a tiny sample and there are probably more photographs in the full-length videos so that there’s consistency.

There’s currently only one video to purchase - the Peek-A-Parent DVD - but there’s a lot of variety of scenes in that one 20-minute video.

Here are the ways you can personalize your DVD:

• Choose your character:
  • mommy
  • daddy
  • grandma
  • or grandpa
• Choose your package, all personalized for you:
  • video
  • DVD

The CuVids are ideal for kids between the ages of 3 and 48 months, but even my 5 and 8 year olds had a good time watching each of us animated on the screen (though I wouldn’t necessarily have one made for a 5 year old if there wasn’t a younger child around to benefit from what the video teaches ).

One of the reasons the parents/scientists behind CuVid created this product was so that working parents could “be with their kids even when they’re not home”.

As working parents, we also know how the rigors of everyday life like work, distance, and divorce can make spending quality time with children difficult. That is why we started Cuvid, to let everyone impart the benefits of being with their children, even when they cannot be.

Yet I can see the benefit of having these videos even for stay-at-home and work-at-home parents!

It would really be kind of magical, wouldn’t it, to be in two places in the home at once?

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I can’t believe that it’s been four months since there’s been a post here at Great Family Gadgets! I’ve been busy with so many things - mainly family, but other projects in my spare time.

The project that got me away from posting here (and everywhere else) was a pendant that I designed and created for Attachment Parenting International. I completely meant to come post about it here, but never felt like writing when I had “free time” - I just wanted to sleep.

The pendant started out to be a special for Mother’s Day, but will be available for purchase through the year. Here’s some background on the symbolism of the pendant:

Representing the connections evident in the lives of all women, the pendant is especially beautiful as a symbol of motherhood. The inner nest and its connections to the outer frame invoke powerful images of family bonds, interpersonal relationships, friendship networks, emotional support structures, and even spirituality. The stunning design embodies the name “Connections”.

After the first couple of months of that were done, I began to focus on transforming my original jewelry site into what it was meant to be from the beginning. I’m still working on getting the shop up and running, but I’m really happy with how it’s all turning out.

At one point I wondered if I should find somebody to take over this site, as my jewelry and teaching others about their power to make their lives what they want it to be is my passion. But products and services that help families spend more and happier time together is a great interest of mine, and getting rid of GFG always felt bad to me.

So did the little pile of products that others had sent to me (ooh, guilt is so hard to deal with!

I realized that I couldn’t do it all myself. And while I’ve had other bloggers mention interest in guest-authoring posts at Great Family Gadgets (and Jeremiah from Z-Recs post has been on the front page for the last four months), I needed to get these products into the hands of other parents for their reviews.

I’ve found a few local women who are very interested in sharing their opinions on products; you’ll be seeing posts from them in the next few weeks.

If you’re a blogger who would like to write a product review or share with others about a product you think is great, but you don’t think such a post would fit with your site, contact me! You will get a link back to your site at the top of the post (so you should contact me even if you think it would fit in with your site but want some different exposure).

I hope you look forward to more from Great Family Gadgets, as I do.

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