i obsess.: PBN reviews.

I'm not going to get too 'splain-y about the Your Baby Can Read program I'm in the midst of reviewing for PBN. You see, there is no need. It's very simple. We cracked open the box with all of the cards and the dvds, and when I slid the cards out and went through them initially for J, by the time we'd reached the "tiger" card, he'd decided he was ready to delight his parents and/or scare the poopy tar out of us.

I held up the card. He looked at it. He said, VERY clearly, "TIGAH." And my husband and I both proceeded, as one would expect in such a circumstance, in a deliberate, calm fashion, to experience simultaneous cardiac arrest. Or, you know, to note that the other spouse's eyes had begun to rise waaaaaay outside of the designated ocular zone. In an excessively creepy manner (because, yes, there is such a thing as excessively creepy).

The cards are really nice. The words, ones like "cats" and "clap" are written in a super-simple, large font, and when you pull on the sliding end, a picture of the word appears. He likes the cards. A lot. He walks around with the various ones, sliding the picture out and laughing the over the thing it's called. He chuckles, "noooooossse" (nose), and "ahms uppp" (arms up).

I try to take the cards and stack them together at the end of playtime and put them away with the dvd, and he kind of freaks out. They have a special spot in his toybox and I am mandated to respect said location. Under threat of mushroom-cloud tantrum. (I'm no fool. I let him keep the cards in the toybox.)

The dvd, a clear, repetitive coordinated set of visual/aural aids for the cards, is harder for him to watch because he loses interest after awhile. This is not his fault. This is not the fault of the creator of the dvd. This is my my husband's fault. You see, the creator of the product explains clearly the need for the child to watch limited amounts of education-focused programming outside of the YBCR instructional dvds. So the fact that J is allowed to watch almost every Pixar movie ever made, as well as most of the Disney films in existence, on a pretty regular basis, kind of prohibits his attention span from being anything but toast from the get-go. Hi. I own this one. I'm a crap parent. *bows low*

So this post is a two-fer; you get the information about the really awesome YBCR product, that I sincerely recommend, because it's made my child literate from the moment that we broke the seal on the package, and because I've gotten to dump a confession out about how the sucktasticness of my momming skills has increased tenfold in the last few months.

Awesome.

This is a review I've chosen to take on, courtesy of PBN. Feel free to read it, wave your middle finger at me, or do a jig. Whatever makes you feel special. (As long as you still read it. haHA! Just kidding. Although there'll be a pop quiz at the end, and your middle finger may not be of much assistance with that. Unless you're super-talented. In which case, please tell me why you're not making mush of villians and wooing hotties? Yeah. I thought you'd give me that kinda look.)

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I'm gonna confess to chewing my lip nervously when I first popped the School Zone Discovery Cards packet out of their (super-cute) container, because I didn't think J, my nineteen-month-old son, would find them very exciting, given his latest adventures involving CARS! and ECSTATIC CAR NOISES! and JUMPING ON THE COUCH! and TERRORIZING THE DOG! and DOING QUANTUM PHYSICS! etc.

Was I ever wrong. Wrong-o. Wrongalilly. Wrong-a-long-a-ding-dong. (Shall I continue? You love this? You hate this? Pound twice on your monitor if you like it, and just smack me the next time you see me if you don't.)

Yeah. J snatched the bunny card from my not-quite-finished-opening-the-box hands and ran laughing away from me like he'd snaked something naughty. The bunny card didn't leave his side for the rest of the day. He couldn't get enough of the bunny's magnetized paws.

And when he found out that the cards slid over the bunny's cardboard tummy, and that the paws were meant for peek-a-boo? I witnessed my favorite of all J behaviors: the happy foot stomp. It's almost as though his feet take over, and he can't prevent himself from stomping around the room like a crazed Lord-of-the-dance participant. The awesomeness is palatable. Infectious.

So the bunny plays peek-a-boo, and there are cards with pictures of his favorite animals, and there are little flaps that flip up to reveal secret pictures hidden beneath, and the whole thing is really ridiculously exciting. The cards kept him engaged for several days, without any interference from me. (Something I happen to love. A lot.)

After he became accustomed to the cards, I began playing interactively with him and flashing them to say the "look who's in the pond! It's the frog!" stuff. He's remained interested in them, too. He still shouts "OGGG!" and "IBBT!" (or "Muss!" "Chuss!"; whatever applies) when I pick them up and read them for him.

I'm glad to have gotten the chance to review these cards; I'm fairly certain they're created with a younger child in mind as the end-user, but that hasn't kept J from enjoying them easily as much as any of his other toys.

I have one minor complaint about the product; I felt like maybe I was doing it wrong when I first tried sliding the cards onto the bunny card (also magnetized), because they kept getting hung up under the bunny's, um, arms. I eventually got the hang of it, so I think I managed to outsmart the cards in the end. It wasn't a big deal, just a wee snafu in the road to revealing to my son that, indeed, spiders live in webs, and mice like cheese. (And to be fair, I think that this is an age-related issue; an 8-12 month old isn't going to run away screaming if you take longer than .12 seconds to flip the card and read it simultaneously. More likely, they'll sidle up to you, slide the card from your hand, and begin to happily gnaw on a multi-colored corner.)

Overall, I'm happy to give the School Zone creators a high-five for coming up with the Discovery Cards. *smack!*