Remember when you said “a baby could do this!” when you tried to install your own kitchen floor tiles? Well, your baby can do this, and kick your ass in the process. The Foam Play Tiles Gift Pack from Skip Hop ($79.95) Twenty 14” x 14” multicolor interlocking foam tiles and thirty-six connectors mean an endless combination of floors, all of which will turn out way better than your sad attempt. Your kids should do better than you in life, right? Start with flooring.
You can’t afford to fly anymore, so put down that airplane spoon and pick up some Construction Machine Cutlery. ($18.49) Boys love dumptrucks, bulldozers and front loaders anyway, so your odds of getting him to eat are greatly increased with this set. The cool thing is each utensil functions perfectly well as a toy. Did you ever think you’d encourage your kids to play with their food? With this set you have to!
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Okay, it’s not big enough to play in. But the Buildable Tree House from Visionary ($175) will let your kids stage plenty of castaway adventures in the house on rainy days. Put it together, pull it apart, put it together again another way, rinse, lather, repeat. It comes with all the requisite tree house accessories: rope ladders, well with water bucket on a pulley, crane, etc. And it’s made of solid Elder and Cherry. Hours of tree house fun await.
How cool is this? Fly Re-Stik decals from Blik ($25) allow your child to take charge of their own interior decor. Each set comes with two 16” birds and four 12” birds. Chose all sky, classic red or snow, or two 12” black, two 12” charcoal and two 12” graphite. They can stick and re-stick the birds however they want, over and over again. Creative kids décor flies to your home with this set.
Send them out the door every day with their favorite new pal. Pre-School Backpacks from Pottery Barn Kids ($29) are comforting and fun, no matter what species. They’re made of rugged cotton corduroy and velour, and they’re large enough to carry around plenty of books, snacks and blankies. And your kids will score plenty of aaawww points, so you’ll look great too. Choose from bear, elephant or monkey.
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Rule 1 of kid-dom: cute = love. There’s a lot to love about the Animal Sleeping Bag. ($79) It’s a squishy-soft sleeping bag, yes, but the pillow is a plush and cute puppy. Cute = love, remember? Even better, this bag of rollup cuteness can be monogrammed. It’s the ultimate for living room sleepovers and the ultimate in cute love.
Rock a little softer with baby tonight. Rockabye Baby! Lullaby Renditions of Coldplay ($16.98) takes the best of Coldplay down from 11 to 1. It’s all here, from “Yellow” to “Trouble”, in soothing vibraphone, mellotron and glockenspiel arrangements. It’s the songs you rocker parents love, recorded with baby in mind.
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Your desk at work is what it is. Your kids desk is the P’Kolino Klick Desk ($198.85), and it’s a desk, chair or desk and chair with one click. The two pieces click together perfectly, and it’s easy enough that your kids can do it themselves at their leisure. And it’s got plenty of room to store books, puzzles, snacks or whatever. Try clicking your desk apart and having snack time in your office. We dare you.
Remember that birthday when all you got was a failed vote to let the rabbit eat a bowl of Trix? (True story!) This is better. The Baby Pablo Gift Box ($11.99) features a cuddly soft new friend named, believe it or not, Pablo, and a gift box. Your little buddy will love cuddling with Pablo. And you’ll love knowing that you provided a much better gift than a worthless vote for cereal consumption for a cartoon rabbit.
You couldn’t do this in class. The Lovely Peel & Stick Chalkboard Tree ($54.50) is chalkboard, tree, landscape and 13 birds that your child can peel & stick anywhere they want, all in one. Imagine sticking a bunch of bird stickers on your second grade English class chalkboard? Yeaaahhh… It’s no demerits and tons of fun for your little scholar with this board.
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