If Bob Marley and a Muppet had a love child,
it would totally look like this guy.

I think we've already established that until my daughter starts school next week, she's enrolled fulltime at Le Academie d'DVDs. She's learned her shapes, colors, numbers, letters and sign language. We've even recently added some DVDs to our collection by speech therapists and one by a music therapist. Why stop there? I eagerly volunteered to participate in the latest Parent Bloggers campaign, Eebee's Adventures.

I received Eebee's Adventures: Exploring Real Stuff. I could tell from the start that Eebee was a well thought out product. Not only did it not have the filmed-in-a-basement vibe of some DVDs but clearly a trained professional had been involved in the planning. (Turns out it was a developmental psychologist.) I felt almost as if I was observing a session between Marielle and one of her many therapists.

More than once a lightbulb went off while I simultaneously was kicking myself for not thinking of some of the fun activities they demonstrated. I later found their website offers at home ideas to build on what you've seen on the DVD. I have many more ideas for activities we can do together but I will likely make slight modifications using non-food items (interesting viewpoint on that here.) If I put her next to a tub of cheerios, she would dive in and eat until her stomach exploded.

According to their website, "Eebee's adventures are designed to engage you and your baby with rich play experiences that provide powerful lessons that memorizing letters, numbers, colors and shapes simply can and do not." Hey, shut up!! I love my little party trick of a toddler!

Ok, so maybe they're right, but here lies my problem with that theory. Watching another baby or a puppet dump a bowl of rice on their head is nowhere near the same experience as doing it yourself. You don't feel the texture rice on your skin, you don't see it scatter across the floor, you don't hear your mother yelling at you that she's tired of cleaning up your messes.

Honestly the first time we watched it, Marielle walked to the DVD player after 5 minutes, hit the eject button, brought it to me and requested another DVD by name. Until then I didn't even know she knew how to do that. Hey, she's learning new stuff already!

Instead we got out the Eebee book, Peek-a-boo Adventures. At first glance I saw a soft book designed for a sixth month old; Marielle will be 2 next week. Her love for this book shocked me. She wanted me to read it with her again and again. The book has many different textures, great graphics and many hands on opportunities. It was a great way for us to practice concepts and words like open, shut, and under, and verbs like roll. She couldn't get enough of it, destroying my hopes of regifting it to a younger friend.

Last night I decided to give the DVD another chance. It was like we were watching a completely new DVD. Mari had 20 minutes straight of belly laughs. Anytime Eebee was on the screen she would go wild. She liked watching the kids, but she loved watching Eebee. I still don't think she learned anything new, but I know I did.

http://cootiechronicles.blogspot.com/2008/12/if-bob-marley-and-muppet-had-love-child.html