Little Smart Tiny Tot Driver: MOVE THE CAT-THE SEAWEED MAN IS HERE!!!!!
Written: Nov 17 '00 (Updated Jul 12 '01)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Compact, colorful, variety of sounds, excellent-skills-development, interesting,batteries last a long time
Cons: None that I consider cons.
The Bottom Line: The favorite toy of the whole family, this toy is a lot of fun and amuses our babies (young and old) often. It's an excellent toy to invest in.
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| Caprig's Full Review: Little Smart Tiny Tot Driver |
I was racing around the house looking for my son.
"Hey, where is the cat?"
No response.
Now the beeping of the reverse mode of the truck was getting louder.
" I said, WHERE is the cat?"
Still no reply. I was really upset. We had just lost our dear pet cat to a tragic death the day that our daughter was born, and I did not think we could live through another tragedy with Bob, the neighborhood cat.
Bob had adopted us shortly after Melissa had died and we had all grown very attached to him. Bob had one bad habit, however. He liked to stake his claim to our driveway. He seemed to view the arrival of a vehicle as a direct challenge for his territory. He would not move until the very last moment, which has a tendency to drive me nuts even today.
I hollered once more, very irritated.
"WHERE ARE YOU??? THE CAT MAY DIE, CAN SOMEONE GO OUT TO SAVE HIS LIFE???"
I looked in vain at my pajama clad body, mentally weighing the options I had. I could expose myself to the neighborhood in my pajamas. Or I could save the life of our little stubborn furry friend.
Oh, man, I was really ticked off at that cat.
When I was about to sacrifice my dignity and burst pell-mell from my side door out into the yard, I heard a stampede of thumping from the basement stairs.
My teenage son, wild eyed, burst from the basement doorway.
" WHAT IS WRONG, WHO IS GONNA DIE?" , he hollered at me with his hair all sticking straight up in the air.
I hollered at him asking him WHAT could be so important for him to be down in the basement. He responded to the high volume interrogation with defending his right to wash his laundry(since getting our new washer, he loves to do his laundry).
Meanwhile, the backup sound of the seaweed truck was getting nearer. I was sure that he was making a delivery for our garden. And Bob's life was on the line. It startled both of us out of our heated debate.
We both looked at each other and said at the same time, " BOB!!!"
With a lumbering leap my son burst from the doorway. I hung anxiously behind wringing my hands WAITING for the sobbing that I feared I would hear when Bob's territorial battle was finally squelched.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
I peeked fearfully from the doorway to see the furious face of my son- eyebrows furrowed deeply and eyes blazing with the look of one that has just been humiliated.
" Very funny, Mom." .
" What do you mean very funny?" I asked rather peeved.
" There is no seaweed truck out there, nor any other truck for that matter. In fact, there is not even a tractor,a car or the cat!!!!!"
I risked my pride and stepped gingerly onto the porch.
He was right. There was not even a bird around the neighborhood.
I was puzzled. Maybe I was hearing things.
The two of us were about ready to start another verbal sparring match when we heard it again. The back up sound of the seaweed truck. It did not sound so loud this time. And it was coming from our living room.
We both ran into each other as we tried at the same time to investigate that mysterious sound.
In the living room was the smiling face of the 6 month old resident of our house pressing happily on the reverse lever of her Little Smart Tiny Tot Driver toy.
We both looked at each other and burst out laughing.
Seaweed truck. Dead cat. What a couple of morons.....
This toy, which was a present from a good friend has been one of our favorite toys. I did mean to say "our" favorite toy too. It has several modes on it and the batteries have lasted almost 2 years since we have had it and it came with the batteries, so who knows how long they have been around.
There is a little key in this toy, which is modeled after a dashboard of a car. The key sends it into a music mode or into a person mode, where people speak sentences to the child. The key also turns the toy off. When you turn the key into one of the two on modes, you get the sound of a person saying "hello" and then the starting sound of a car.
There is a steering wheel with a horn and a reverse lever which makes an engine racing noise when pressed forward and a reverse noise when pulled back toward the user. The noises are the same in each mode.
There are 3 colored buttons that when pressed in music mode play long excerpts from tunes like "She'll be comin' round the mountain", "Pop goes the weasel", and "Mary Had a Little Lamb". When in person mode, there is only one note played with each of the colored buttons under the wheel.
There are also 4 "people buttons" to the right of the colored buttons. They have little people oriented pictures on them. When in music mode, these buttons play music excerpts such as the "Farmer in the Dell", "London Bridge", and then a sound of a siren for a fire truck and a police car.
When in person mode, these same buttons say phrases :
"Hello, Baby."
"Time to go home."
"Can I help you?"
"Emergency! Emergency!"
The steering wheel of this toy has a little horn in the middle that sounds like the old fashioned kind of horns that I used to hear in old movies when I was a kid (yes, they had talking movies back then.....)The horn sounds the same in each mode.
This toy is compact, very sturdy, colorful and extremely attractive for all of us to want to play with it.
Our daughter, who is turning out to be quite the card, used to use this toy as young as 4 months old to get our attention. If she was crying and no one answered, she would turn it to the "EMERGENCY! EMERGENCY!" mode until someone came.
In the morning when she woke up, she would immediately press "She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain" to let us know she was up.
If someone was not allowing her to go somewhere or do something, she would either press the beep of the horn or the racing lever.
The reverse lever was good, because when she could not move very well, it would sometimes get pressed while she slept, so we could check on her to see what was going on. And on several occasions, the siren did actually warn us when she was in a precarious position and she had accidentally pressed the buttons or the lever.
Our version of this Little Smart Tiny Tot Driver does not have the lights on it, but we love this toy. It is one of my all- time personal favorites. It is really creative and very compact. I am not sure what the NEWEST models are like, since they change things so rapidly in toys every few months, but this one is just right for us.
Recommended:
Yes
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Caprig
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Product-Evaluation/Information-Specialist. Too Busy to Be KIND to Others? You are TOO BUSY.
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