MostRoyal.com – Page 5 – Toys & Gear tested by our Little Prince for the Royal Seal of Approval.

Leap Frog: My Discovery House [Video Review]

My son received the My Discovery House for his first birthday. It is a very simple toy, with moving doors and windows, a light switch, a couple of birds. etc. For a child who is obsessed with doors and light switches this toy entertains him really well.

He played with this in the beginning for a long time. It was a lifesaver during a recent long car ride, where he played with it for over an hour! But, I have stopped giving it to him as it doesn’t keep his attention like it used to. I expect that I can bring it out every so often and he will love it again [see the update to this review below].

The birds on the roof “talk.” [See video] The little bird has a cute high pitched voice, but the bigger bird has a low adult voice. It’s rather amusing, but I feel like it could have been a little less of a man voice even though it is the bigger bird. My husband loves when the man’s voice belts out, “TWEEEET.” It’s become an inside joke in our house now and he walks around and will randomly go, “TWEET.”

All in all, we like this toy. My son loved it at first and he really was entertained. He did get bored with it after a few days, but as I said, I think it will come back in rotation soon enough.

UPDATE:

We recently took this toy on a family vacation. Because it had worked so well in the car before we decided to try it again. It held our 1-year-old son’s attention for multiple hours during the long car ride to our destination. Once again, multiple hours.

This kept him happy and us sane! And, it was a hit with his 3 and 8 year old cousins for the week we stayed with them. We were really surprised by how popular this was.

UPDATED RATING: 5 out of 5 stars. We strongly recommend.

How to protect your kid against lead poisoning!

We live in Brooklyn. We live in an old building. We live in an old building with nightmare plumbing.

Can you see where this is going?

A friend of mine recently bought an old house and during his inspection he found out that the the old pipes had lead solder. His lawyer told him that if he ever rents out the property he needs to put a lead clause in his rental contract. It’s a standard thing to protect against legal actions from renters. I’m sure I signed something like this when we moved into our place.

My son was only a few weeks old when he told me this. I wanted to filter our water to be safe.

We were supplementing breastfeeding with the occasional bottle and we knew that eventually our son would ween. A regular Brita pitcher doesn’t filter lead and to be honest we didn’t even change the filter enough (twice a year is better than nothing I guess).

The Culligan FM-15A Advanced Faucet Filter Kit was a perfect solution. This filter kit installed easily (make sure to check your faucet type for compatibility) and has worked flawlessly since then. It screws onto the spout on your faucet and when you want filtered water you pull out a little knob and – TA-DA – filtered agua!

Not only does it improve the water’s taste and smell, it reduces lead, lindane and atrazine, sediment, and particulate class 1. Do you boil your tap water for tea? Pasta? Soup? Well as the steam evaporates you only end up concentrating water contaminants. So your water might not show up as having lead when tested, but simmer a pot of homemade stew on the stove for 2 hours and suddenly you have a different story.

The life of the filter cartridge, FM 15RA lasts up to 2 months/200 gallons. This manufacturer’s rating has proven to be true and thanks to Amazon Subscribe and Save a new filter arrives every two months without even having to think about it. It’s great!

Like all filters of this type, near the end of the cartridge life your water will start to run slow. I like to think of all the filth it has captured. This makes the wait tolerable. My wife likes to sing a song called, “Old-Man Pissing” to the tune of Old-Man River. Maybe not the most appealing concept but it makes us laugh.

My only complaint is that this filter doesn’t attach to pull-down faucets. My mom wanted to buy one for my brother but it wouldn’t have worked on his sink. Culligan does make an under the counter filter systems for these situations. Since we live in an apartment the Culligan FM-15A Filter Kit was a great way to add a powerful filter without making modifications and losing a security deposit.

Highly recommended. 5 out of 5 stars. MostRoyal!

A Good Naptime Book

I thought I would write a short review of this book because it is one that I can recite at a moments notice if needed.

We received this book from a family member and found that it was a duplicate in our library. I chose to make this book part of our nap time routine when I began crib training at nap time (admittedly WAY too late in my child’s life: 7 months of sleeping with a baby on top of me at every nap became quite tiresome!!!)

I like this book. It is simple, it was easy to memorize, and now that I have read it a minimum of twice per day for the past 5 months, my son is beginning to interact with it as well. There is a section of the book where all of the characters are exercising and I always take the time to point out each animal and what they are doing (based on my own interpretation of course.) At this stage, my son actively points to each animal with me, which I find very charming. Soon enough he will be telling me what each animal is and what they are doing! Kids grow up too fast!

What I like most is that as soon as I pick up the book my son settles in, starts rubbing his eyes, and acts sleepy. This could have happened with any book I selected, of course, but I thought this was appropriate since its title happens to be “The Going To Bed Book.”

4 out of 5 stars

Rainforest Melodies and Lights Deluxe Gym

The Fisher-Price Rainforest Melodies and Lights Deluxe Gym was a big hit for our son. He spent a lot of time laying under this as an infant swatting and kicking at the toys and staring at the lights. For us this toy was especially important for development due to an injury my son ended up with at birth, leaving his left arm weak at the earliest stages of life. (Thankfully he has recovered completely and is an extremely strong little man!) Seeing him lift his arm to reach for the toys as he regained his strength day by day was wonderful.

I also liked this toy because it entertained him for long periods of time (in baby minutes.) The lights and music, along with the moving butterflies kept his attention well, and the spinning and rattling toys were particularly attractive to his developing mind.

I would recommend this activity gym for any newborn. It is currently being used by a cousin’s newborn son, who also gives it a high rating!

5 out of 5 stars

You can purchase the Fisher-Price Rainforest Melodies and Lights Deluxe Gym on Amazon.com

The World’s Best Sippy Cup? [updated]

Want a sippy cup that doesn’t leak? I think we may have finally found it. And, fingers crossed this time because we are about to lose our mind from leaks.

Imagine the scene: Mom and dad in a heinous truckstop bathroom trying to change a poo-splosion diaper that’s barely clinging to the underside of The Little Prince.

MOM: “GET ME A DIAPER, STAT!”

Dad frantically digs in the diaper bag.

MOM: “HURRY, I can’t contain this anymore. The wipes have burst into flames!”

DAD: “I can’t FIND them!”

MOM: “At the bottom! Quickly, it’s like the BP Oil Spill over here!”

Dad finally connects with the clean pampers only to discover that they are already busily soaking up a leaking sippy cup.

DAD: “%*$H!T %Dh#R@F& $&!@$%”

This bring us to our review of the Munchkin Sesame Street Character Cup, we pray to you, o’ blessed vessel of water and toddler refreshment.

We love this because:

Easy to assemble.
It has a face, thus you can make it sing and dance if your are desperate. If you have taken a long car ride you understand how helpful this can be!
The lid and handles stay attached and don’t leak.
Unlike some of the other cups we have tried, our little guy took to this straw right away. It may also be the first time he didn’t choke and water board himself. The straw has a 1-way valve to prevent leaks and this seems to help control the flow of liquid.
He loves the handles. We have some other cups that leak when you use the handles. Not the case here.
BPA-free.
Top rack dishwasher safe.

Some people have complained that the straw doesn’t have a cap. Seriously? We have not found this to be a problem. Even if it did have a cap, how long is that going to last before we lose it? About 45 seconds. Then two weeks later The Little Prince is going to find it under the couch and shove it in his mouth. No cap? Not a problem for me! As listed above, the straw has a one-way valve and we have had zero issues with leaks; a cap would be excessive.

Now, is this really the PERFECT cup. No. Nothing is. But so far these have brought some sanity to our lives. We did have one leak incident, but that seemed to be our fault as we apparently didn’t put the lid on all the way.

Give these cups a try. We think you will love them. Also, Amazon sells it as a two pack!

Update:

After several months of use, we are sadly finding this cup leaks more and more. Particularly out of the straw when cold liquid is exposed to warmer air. It appears that the one way valve that prevented this at first is becoming looser and softer after repeated toddler abuse.

Here is a pro tip for sippy cups in general, if you fill a sippy cup with ice cold liquid and the cup gets warm it will create air pressure inside the cup. Air has to get out and it will force it’s way out, often taking liquid with it. It’s like microwaving leftovers with the tupperware lip still locked. It will heat up, pop the cover off and throw food everywhere in the process.

Preventing this is super easy. Use room temp liquids or keep your cup cold. This worked well when we were just filling Elmo with water. But now that we are using cold milk out of the fridge we can watch it creep out of the top and dribble down the side as it begins to warm.

When we take “Elmo” on a walk in the blistering city heat we keep him in an insulated pouch surrounded by ice. This seems to resolve the issue when traveling. But sadly, it’s when we are at home and our son is carrying this cup around and it’s not in a little cooler, well… leaks happen.

It is no longer my favorite sippy cup due to the durability of the one way valve. That said, our son loves it so much that we keep it in rotation. It’s very easy to get him to drink out of this cup and that’s extremely helpful on days when he is being fussy.

Revised score is: 3 out of 5 stars.

Best Book So Far!

Munch, by Matthew Van Fleet, has proven to be one of the most exciting items my son could have received. As with most children, I am sure, he loves books, especially interactive, pop-up, and lift-the-flap books. This book gets my son to screech with excitement at the site of the cover. We can’t even read the book anymore because he is so excited to get to the moving pages he begins turning them himself. And, as soon as the page is opened to the first munching alligator he shrieks with excitement.

If this book is within site of my son all other toys are dropped. I even tried showing him a new pop-up book, which I thought would be more visually exciting, and he pushed it out of the way to find Munch.

It is a simple, rhyming, delightful little book. Unfortunately, and I knew the day would come, one of the moving parts has been damaged, but I will not hesitate to replace it!

If I had to choose one book to add to any child’s library, it would be Munch, by Matthew Van Fleet.

5 out of 5 stars

Best dSLR camera for Parents

I often get asked by expectant parents what advice I can give as a new parent. My answer is always to take as many photos as possible. Our little guy has grown up so fast
and without some of the photos I took we would have lost many memories to the blur of time sweeping past us. That first month… Wait, that was a MONTH? It felt like a week.

I also recommend that you take photos of everything. You won’t know what you needed to record until it’s too late. I remember when our son was a few months old and we noticed a dime sized red mark on his scalp.

“Had he always had that? Did he have it at birth? Was it getting darker? Is it a rash! IS HE OKAY!?“

We reviewed the photos… yep he’s always had it. Oh, and it’s actually getting fainter. How had we never noticed it before? Are we just that tired? (Yes.)

Besides shooting tons a photos and videos with our iPhones, having a nice dSLR camera has helped me create some really stunning photos of our little guy. Granted, I’m a bit of a photo nerd, but if you can afford it I HIGHLY recommend the following gear:

Canon 70d dSLR camera.

This is basically one step away from being a “pro” model – and 5 years ago a camera with these specs would have be pro. The 70d provides excellent image quality, great accurate focus, and a really nice burst mode so you can rapidly take photos and catch the perfect moment. This camera also has tons of shooting options from fully automatic to detailed manual controls.

To me, the selling point of this camera is the video mode. This is the first dSLR by Canon to offer a super accurate automatic focus system when in video mode. Up until now dSLR cameras had horrible auto focus when shooting video and almost always needed you to manually focus them… This was not a great situation for mom and dad who are trying to capture first laughs, steps and words. The new autofocus on the 70d is so easy and perfect you won’t even think twice about how to use it. It just works.
This camera also includes a great touchscreen and super sensible controls compared to some Nikon models I’ve used.

This version of the 70D ships with a long telephoto lens that will take you from a nice wide angle 18mm to a close up 135mm. This kit lens is a huge improvement over previous models. As to be expected from a zoom lens, it can be a bit big and bulky. So, what do you do when you want something smaller and lighter?

Canon EF-S 24mm f/2.8 STM Lens

This newly released lens is often called a Pancake because it’s so thin. This fixed length of 24mm is perfect for cramped interiors and walking around parties as it mirrors your natural field of vision when mounted on the 70d (due to the camera 1.6 crop factor). The lens is known for it’s super sharp images, light weight, tiny size, and for having a fast aperture of 2.8. The lower the aperture number the more background blur.

An aperture of 2.8, combined with the high ISO options on the 70d, will also allow you to shoot photos indoors without a flash. This is something I found very useful when taking pictures of a newborn. I didn’t t want to blind the poor kid! All this for $125 dollars. You may find that you use this as you main lens because it’s so good. Should you still get the kit lens? Yes. You will want the ability to zoom and if you were to purchase the zoom separately you would pay far more that the bundled price. Canon also makes a 40MM version of the pancake lens. I love using this version as well (I own both).

Transcend 32 GB High Speed Class 10 UHS Flash Memory Card

You will need a memory card with your new camera. I strongly recommend the Transcend 32 GB SDHC memory card. I’ve shot with a ton of memory cards over the years and speed does matter, especially if you are shooting rapid fire bust images. This one delivers and the price is amazing.

You will get way over 1000 picures in both Jpeg and RAW file formats. That’s great because if you remember my #1 tip: take photos of EVERYTHING.

Secondary options:

I know not everyone will be able to afford the 70d. As a lower priced alternative I recommend the Canon Rebel. They tend to introduce new models every year, each better than the last. While I have not used the most recent version, the reviews are very positive. This camera is also compatible with the Canon EF-S 24mm f/2.8 lens I listed above. Also, you can now purchase this camera with the same 18-135mm zoom sold with the 70d!

For years I took photographs on a very old rebel and people were always impressed. You can, and you will, get great pictures.

If you want to go the other direction and spend even more money, I would always recommend buying higher quality lenses before a more expensive camera body (lenses last longer). The all time greatest lens by Canon (in my opinion) is the 70-200mm F 2.8 IS II. This telephoto zoom will create beautiful pictures with razor sharp focus and gorgeous bokah (blurry backgrounds).

Happy shooting!

Fisher-Price Laugh & Learn Car Review [VIDEO]

We purchased the Fisher Price Laugh & Learn Car for my son at the Holidays when he was just about six months old. He is now 12 months and he has loved playing with this toy from day one. It was delivered in frustration free packaging and we found it very easy to assemble. As our son has developed over the past 6 months this toy has grown with him and gets plenty of use! Even the cat plays with it… But only when we are trying to sleep.

Every aspect of the toy has been explored from the shape sorting to the spinning back wheels, and the rotating dashboard. It was even tested by a slightly older friend (at 15 months, he is the mature friend of our group) and was given a high approval rating by the car loving boy! As with most children’s toys, the songs can get repetitive, but that’s what we get for purchasing battery operated toys in the first place, right?!

I give the Fisher Price Laugh & Learn Car 5 out of 5 stars for its ability to grow with the child and provide plenty of entertainment. I expect my son to continue playing with this toy for many months (maybe years??) to come, making it a worthwhile purchase!

Logitech HD Pro Webcam C920

Grandparents live far away? This webcam combined with Skype (or FaceTime) was a great investment for only $70. The HD webcam was plug and play easy to set up, the image/sound quality is EXCELLENT, and it comes with a super long six foot cord.

The cord is actually a big selling point for me as it allows the camera to be moved around the room to capture the action. The mount contains a standard tripod screw making it easy to attach to any tripod and it also unfolds into a little “claw” that you can use to hook the webcam to the top of your TV, Laptop, crib, etc. Just make sure Jr can’t grab the camera! 🙂

The autofocus feature works extremely well. We could sit on the sofa with the baby and then bring him up close to the camera without the camera searching to try and focus on us. The close focusing distance is very good too. When our son would spot the camera, crawl over and inspect it the image was always in focus and hilarious for those watching his curious face on the other side.

MOST ROYAL! 5 out of 5 stars!

Gretsch G9126 Guitar Ukulele

Wow, I can not express how wonderful this 6 string Ukulele has been. Our kid LOVES it!

Because it’s has six strings, like a guitar, this uke is super easy to pick up and play all the normal songs you know without having to think of ukulele chords.

I bought a wall hanger (Hercules GSP38WB) so I can keep the uke hung up in our main playroom. It’s been super useful. I can quickly grab this mini-guitar and sing songs to our one-year-old son’s delight. He also loves to sit in front of me and carefully strum the stings with one finger while I make chords. He will actually squeal with joy at this. As a dad who hopes to teach his son guitar, these moments are just precious. Finally, there was one day a few months ago when he was having a temper tantrum and we were unable sooth him. Suddenly I saw the Uke, grabbed it and began singing. He immediately stopped crying and began to smile and laugh. Worth. Every. Single. Penny.

This thing sounds great too. I’ve been very happy with the tone, especially for the size. It is very well rounded with a nice punchy feel. We also spent one afternoon around the pool and this little uke got passed around the deck as we sang songs. Super charming. I also like the fact that as our son gets older the size and soft nylon strings will make this a great beginner instrument.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars!