Things That Are Cool Until They Stopped Being Cool

Even before your kid is born, you will be inundated with promises of products that will protect, educate, or amuse your kid. Some of these things are cool—like Whoozits and Baby Einstein DVDs. But some things start off being cool, but then, after you use it for a while, you realize they fall short. Here are some things my wife and I bought for our kids that we thought were badass, until we actually started to use it.

Heat sensitive spoons — You can purchase spoons that change from bright colors at room temperature, to white in color in hot temperatures. These are useful for knowing when the food is too hot for your baby"s mouth without putting it up to your own lips and testing it for yourself. Brilliant huh? Great use of hypercolor right? Yes it was. For a while. Then two things happened: we gave our daughter Gerber Stage 3 Spaghetti with the spoon which stained them so ferociously that you can"t tell what color the spoon is supposed to be. Then we put the spoons in the dishwasher which blitzed them with water so hot that it permanently turned them white. My advice is to just use the tried and true method of your own lips.

Colorful Stuffed Butt Mobiles — A common mistake that parents make is to buy brightly colored mobiles for their kid"s cribs. It is proven that in the beginning few months of your baby"s life (Prime mobile season), your baby can only see dark fuzzy shapes. That"s why those ugly black and white pattern things are so effective. If the mobile is filled with pastel colored shapes, the odds are your kid won"t be able to distinguish them at all.

Another thing to look out for is what your baby actually sees of the mobile from their point of view. We bought the John Lennon African Animal mobile for our daughter. I liked it because it was filled with distinctive looking animals and it played Imagine. My daughter didn"t care for it probably because all she saw from her vantage point was the butt seams and labels on the bottom of each stuffed animal.

Rubber Animal Tub Faucet Covers — Oh look how cute! It"s a rubber duckie with the tub water coming out of it"s mouth! We have to get it! No you don"t. These things are more hassle than they are amusing. First off, the odds are, no matter how uinversal you think your tub faucet is, it most likely will not fit the "universal" rubber animal cover. Secondly, if you don"t drain these religiously and dry them out completely every time, little furry mildew colonies will form in the duckie"s beak or any other injection-molded tight plastic crevice built into the animal body.
SPECIAL NOTE: With all bath toys, it is really important to drain all water from the toys. That means squeeze out any water filled toys, etc. Your kid will want to squirt water out of the duckie"s mouth into their"s. Make sure they aren"t squeezing out something blue and furry.

Generic Thomas Train Cars — They just aren"t as good. They are way cheaper, but when they have weaker magnets, cheaper wobbly wheels, and they sometimes don"t stay on the track as well. When I was a kid, I would rather have 1 Transformer than 10 GoBots. And it"s not just because they were more than meets the eye. It was because the GoBots were made of cheaper plastic and they never transformed as well. (It is a shame though, considering GoBots came out before Transformers did). Anyways, go generic on vaseline. Don"t skimp on Thomas.

Cinderella II DVD — Your kid might love Cinderella and this sequel showed a lot of promise when I saw the trailer. But this, at best, a movie even your kid will only want to watch once. I mean Cinderella actually plays matchmaker for Drizella! Jaq the mouse becomes a human! It"s just silly! It just doesn"t have the magic that the original has. Do yourself a favor and rent it or borrow it from the library.

So here"s my list. Do any of you other Noodads have anything to add to the Cool But Not Cool list?