-Updated- Who Stole the Cookie From the Cookie Jar? A Review, a Giveaway and the Winners!

Every morning, the twins and I sit down and get some work done. This is just to get them used to a homework routine where they sit down, do table work and be serious about what they are doing. When we are hard at work, Muffin feels extremely left out. We try to time his bath at that time so that he is busy and distracted. Unfortunately, his bath doesn't last for an entire hour; he would end up being very shriveled and prune like if it did.

Anyway, I've tried to split my time between him and the twins. We play little games that are 2-3 minute long so that I can pop back easily to see what the twins are up to. It's not so much watching the tennis match, as it is being the tennis ball going back and forth.

His ways of occupying himself include climbing all over me, lying on the ground playing with his lion and tiger or attempting to draw cocoons, caterpillars, sting rays and sharks on his Etch-a-Sketch. What he really likes is when I  cut up pictures and do craft with him; glue being his favourite toy. The problem with giving a three year old glue, however, is that it gets used with impunity and ends up every where.

But generally, the rule of thumb is that he likes 'doing' things. Last week, I tried something new with him and he had a lot of fun with it. We've repeated it a couple of times and he's had to fight his brother and sister for it.

I'm going off tangent here but I love shopping. But since JED, the shopping has been severely limited to things for them rather things that I like and want for myself. And one of the things I love for them are well-made toys. With 3 of them, I'm big on toys are that durable; that can endure the abuse that they unleash on it. I'm also big on toys that don't limit the way they can play with them; character toys, toys requiring batteries, I'm not so big on. Toys that they have to manipulate, that they can play with on their own and with each other are a big check, in my book. One of the brands I've fallen in love with are the toys from Learning Resources. The twins recently got a solar powered cash register for their birthday from there; a toy that didn't require batteries and they spent hours playing supermarket checkout; it warranted an exploration of what else they had. 

And then, enter The Mind Store, a  Singapore seller that sells toys (Learning Resources and Educational Insights among others) that fit my criteria. I spent hours looking at the website, wishing for all the money, space and time in the world to buy and use all the toys with JED. Recently, they were nice enough to send me a cookie jar full of alphabet cookies.

Evan's first question was whether he could eat the cookies. Jordan broke out her cooking set and insisted on baking some of the cookies most narcissistically in her name. Here she is, glazing her cookies with a brush.

And Muffin, Muffin just claimed it for himself. After all, his siblings were supposed to be busy with their homework. Of course, there was the constant imploring of "Mommy, play with me". So I did, I got him to find the cookies to spell his name.

On top of that, the set came with instructions, suggested games and game cards. One of games had pictures of his favourite animals with their names albeit with a letter missing. This is probably to help teach the little ones phonics; simple d (consonant)- o (vowel)- g (consonant) words. But Muffin, being an expert schooled by Youtube did not want or need my help or guidance in trying to sound out the "d" in "dog" . In fact, he swatted me away when I tried to help him.  While able to do that, he obviously, he had no idea of what reading meant because instead of going d-o-g,  "dog", he would go d-o-g, " 狗" or c-a-t , " 猫"; letter recognition and individual phonetic recognition present but no real understanding of how the letters are put together to make a word.

But then again, he's only 3 and probably uses more of his brain to figure out which tree is safe to climb. 

Anyway, the verdict.

In my book, this set is a win.

1. Is it durable? It's made out of hard plastic and no matter how much he throws it and tosses it, they just bounce back at him. That in itself entertained him for quite a while.

2. Could they be played with, more than one way? Yes. Muffin lined them up and made them into alphabet trains. He placed them on plates and served them to everyone as cookies. Jordan did the same thing though her presentation was more sophisticated and hers went in the 'oven' first.


3. Could the game be played without me? Yes it could. There were more than enough pieces to go round. Both Evan and Jordan wanted to play with Muffin after they were done with their work. The games in the set were self-explanatory. They categorised all the letters according to colour. Evan laid out all the alphabet cards and Jordan told him to go look for the letters to match the cards. He obediently did. This left me time actually have breakfast and read a little bit while JED played around me.

4. The set could be played by all three of them and the twins requested to do their school spelling with the letters. (That's where the one problem with the set came up. Insufficient letters to properly spell more complicated sight words that had double consonants or vowels in them)

And the million dollar question: Would I have bought this set if they didn't send me one? Probably. It's $35.90. I may have waited another 2 months or so, to use whatever spare change I might have to pay for it (it's non-essential in a sense!) but I would have eventually got it. 

So, for those who have an ongoing love-hate (love the items but hate the price) relationship with well-made, educational toys, The Mind Store has  decided to offer Diaperbag readers three $10 vouchers* to shop at their store. Here's how you can win one.



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1. "Like" The Mind Store on Facebook  then head over to The Mind Store's Online Store and have a look around.

2. Leave a comment here about what got your drooling at the store (Don't forget to do so by 17 October 2013). Be sure you leave your name and email address so that we can actually get in touch with you.

3. Share this post on your public wall so that your friends know that these great learning aids and toys exist out there!

Q. E. D.
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And the winners are...
1. Mel
2. Jeanette
3. Andrew

Hurray for you all! The Mind Store will be contacting you soon!

* Vouchers will only be valid for Learning Resources and Educational Insights items

Disclaimer: We got a complimentary jar of ABC cookies for this review. No other monetary compensation had been received. The views and pictures are all Diaperbag's. 

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Monday Morning Madness (The WINNERS!): Slumber Party

And so, we have winners! For a little monkey and a little robot. Both are equally cute PJs and I'm am now tempted to buy the robot one for my little monkey at home.

Bliss Tan and Debra Li, please get in touch with MDBambini at mdbambi@gmail.com to claim your pjs!

Both MDBambini and JED at Diaperbag thank everyone for taking part!

Technorati Tags: pre-schoolers, giveaway

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Monday Morning Madness (A Giveaway): Slumber Party

If I left it up to the children, there would only be one out of the three who would willingly put on pyjamas for bed. And that would be Evan, whom we occasionally and fondly refer to as the little China-man because he would pull his pants all the way up to his belly and waddle around, just to make us laugh.

The other two? Muffin hated anything long sleeved because he got hot. Jordan would sleep in shorts if we gave her the go ahead. Unfortunately, the two would refuse any sort of warm night wear were also the two that would kick off any sort of blanket we used to shield them when the night became chilly. I have occasionally looked at Jordan, one leg hiked in her sleep as if she were in the middle of a running stride and recalled how I used to sleep in shorts as short as hers. Unfortunately, age and bones that can tell the weather have caught up with me and shorts are no longer a good idea. Having the benefit of hindsight, I try not to let the two renegades get away with it.

I chanced upon the solution with these pyjamas we got from Jordan's Godma for Christmas one year. They were long sleeved, long pant and cuffed so they didn't drag onto the ground or loosen and made from such soft material that if bedsheets were made out of it, I would.never.get.out.of.bed. They didn't misshapen with washing and Jordan's got passed down to Muffin even though they were pink and had hearts on them. And even with the pink hearts, Muffin did not battle wearing them at all. The only problem was that they were getting very threadbare and we needed some new ones.

And almost as if she read my mind, the nice lady behind MDBambini asked if I wanted to try the cute pj sets that she brought in. She had brought them in because she had two little girls herself and was always on the constant look out for nice things for them. That slowly grew into a little business where she was bringing in nice things that other mommies wanted for their little ones! I took a look at the album she sent me and decided that I wanted every single set of them. But since we do try to practice "want not, waste not" in our household, I got JED to pick out the ones they might want, warning them that it was still dependent on whether MDBambini had sizes in the designs they wanted.

It wasn't much of a surprise that the boys zero-ed in on the extremely festive red Thomas the Tank ones. I was just surprised that Evan didn't protest that his pesky little brother picked the same one that he did. In fact, I think he was quite chuffed that his little brother picked the same design as he did.

It was also not much of a surprise that Jordan picked the pink Princess Ballerina one since those were the two identities she fancied for herself. In my mind, I was picking my battles and if that was what it was going to take to get her to wear some longs to bed, so be it.

Before I replied to MDBambini, I made all three promise that if I was going to request those pjs for her, they had better wear them. Solemnly they did and Evan bugged me, like a broken record about when they were going to arrive, until they finally did. It took all of me and some ominous warnings that involved itchy and scratchy skin, to stop them from wearing it right out of the packaging.

It was everything I wanted in pjs. Soft, well made and well fitting. But what did it for me, especially for Muffin, was the the pj pants were stitched in such a way that it had space allowance for his diaper, giving him an extremely cute looking bum as he waddled around proudly showing off his new clothes (It was a pity he wouldn't let me photograph his bum!)

And if you asked me, the fact that Jordan wanted to wear the pj top to church the next morning was the best testament of how much she liked these pjs. Of course, we didn't let her and had to explain that no matter how pretty her pjs were, she was not to wear them to out of the house.

Anyway, to celebrate the fact that the JED kids are finally going to sleep dressed decently warm, especially since the rains have begun, I've arranged with MDBambini to give away TWO sets of Long Sleeved Pyjamas to the two deserving little ones of Diaperbag/ JED readers (worth $11 each). There are 25 different designs to choose from and I truly did want all 25 sets (1 for each night of the month and we repeat the top 5 or 6 favourites!)  To enter, simply

1. Like The Mighty Adventures of JED on Facebook

2. Like MDBambini on Facebook, go to Long-Sleeved Pyjamas Album and pick the design you really like, "like" it and leave a comment

3. Share this giveaway post on your Facebook wall and tag both our pages. Make sure your post is public so we can view it! For those unsure, just click "share" on the The Mighty Adventures of JED Facebook giveaway post for the pjs.

4. Leave a blog comment here about which pj design you picked for the little one and why you or the little one decided on that one, from the album + email address + name of your FB account that you used to like the pages.

Some designs from MD Bambini

Details:
* Open to Singapore residents only.
* Ends Monday, 5 November 2012 2359hrs {Singapore time}

* Random winners announced on Thursday, 8 November 2012 via our Facebook pages. Winners havr 5 days to email mdbambi@gmail.com, or the prizes will be redrawn.

Hopefully, you have as much fun looking at the designs as JED and myself did!

 Technorati Tags: pre-schoolers, free giveaway

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