Bouncy Horse

At her last well visit, when going through the major milestones for 18-month olds, our Dr. seemed surprised that Clio is not all that adept at climbing. When she heard that Clio crawls up stairs and basically refuses to go down them at all (at one point I swear it was reaching phobia proportions), she said "Hm. Well, I guess it will come in time."

Then, at a recent outing to PowerPlay and a subsequent playdate at Statia's, I realized that Clio can't seem to figure out how to climb on to physical toys, like rocking horses or play vehicles. She wanted very badly to ride Zoe's truck, but wound up just sitting sidesaddle and not going much of anywhere.

"Does she have any toys like this?" Statia asked me. And the truth is, she doesn't. We seem to have a lot of art and music stuff, a LOT of animals and babies, and a number of small-motor skills games, like puzzles and stacking cups. We don't have anything you climb on or ride on partly because our house just isn't that big, and partly because most of that stuff is pretty ugly.

So about a week ago, Clio and I went off to Target to get a wooden bike I had seen there many times, part of the line of toys Parents Magazine has developed:
But just like every other time I have ever gone to our small and non-suburban Target on a mission for a specific product, they did not have the bike. Loath to leave empty handed, I contemplated the ride-on toy section for quite a while, trying to decide which plastic toy was least offensive. The Barbie versions were out (baby number 2 could be a boy) and they were sold out of the Dora and Diego options, which would have been the obvious choice considering Clio's obsession with all things "Dorla", so we narrowed it down to a Mickey Plane and a Finding Nemo dune buggy. I finally left it up to Clio, who chose the plane:


Now, in his own way, Dave is more of an aesthete than I am, and knowing his penchant for wooden, European-made, quirky toys, I left Mickey in the car until he came home to confer.

Long story even longer, Dave had spent the better part of his afternoon doing research, and had determined that the Skuut was just the thing for Clio:



We called every Brooklyn location and found that this is a popular item, sold out all over town. Except at LuLu's. The next day we went off to this local kids hair salon and toy store, and learned pretty quickly that the Skuut is just a little big (and a lot advanced) for Clio. Thus began the looooong debate over radio flier tricycles versus a lovely wooden rocking horse (the former has too large of a turning radius (according to Dave), and the latter is also a bit too big for now).

Eventually we went with the Rody, an inflatable bouncy horse that grows with your kids- you simply inflate it more or less to fit their size.


(As an aside, can you see why Dave and I rarely get anything done? Research, more research, and crippling indecisiveness.) Anyway, we got the thing home, and Clio wanted to sit on it immediately, even before we got it out of the box.

And then still and some more once it was uncrated.


Once it was actually inflated, she took it for a spin - and a number of spills. Eventually, she really got the hang of it. She has figured out that stability helps, and drags the thing over to a chair, table (or her dad) in order to support herself getting on the thing.


And she has learned to swing her leg over the top- which is exactly what I was after in the first place. In fact, she might be a little too comfortable with this toy already:


By the way, the Mickey plane is still in the car. Who knows, maybe Clio will build a fleet of vehicles to get around the living room in style.