eebee is a cutie

Parent Bloggers asked me to review one of "eebee's adventures" dvds, and to be perfectly honest, I initially found it to be a little weird. eebee is a puppet, admittedly pretty cute, who explores all kinds of different methods of play in the dvd- Exploring Real Stuff. eebee, and other babies featured during the video, play and explore with cheerios, rice, paper, wrapping materials, balls, and other equally common objects and manipulate them in different ways. All sorts of experimentation takes place, from dumping to scooping to tearing to crumpling to rolling and sliding.

The real test of the dvd, of course, came from playing it for Gabriel. In the end, what I think doesn't really matter, if the real critic in our family liked or disliked it. He was mesmerized. I was sure it would be a little young for him, since the age range for this particularly dvd started at 6 months (although others on the website start at different ages), but as usual, I was totally wrong. Whenever the screen would shift and the title of the next scene came on, Gabe would scream "more baby!" at the television. He loved the puppet, eebee, and he loved watching the other babies play with the different objects on the screen. He kept inching closer and closer to the television to see the babies up close and personal, and would occasionally turn around to comment to me on what he was seeing.

Besides being entertaining, I almost wanted to pull out paper and a pen to take notes on the different things the babies were playing with in the dvd. It would be a great snowy day activity to fill some containers with rice or beans and let Gabe go to town with a scoop or a tube as they were demonstrating in the movie. I'll definitely be saving my packaging or wrapping materials for him to do some mini-experiments with tearing and crumbling and pulling. I even started thinking that I should wash out my recycling and let him play with it before I put it out each week. The babies in the dvd seemed to be totally engaged with all of the activities, and I think Gabe might enjoy it too.

In addition to the dvd, we also reviewed eebee's HAVE A BALL cloth activity book, and Gabe really loved this one. In fact, I'm planning to order a couple as gifts for other ball lovers in our life, because this book was such a hit. The book has a cloth stuffed ball attached on a string, and on each page of the book, the ball is used in a different way. On one page you put it through a hoop, then on another in a pocket, or you hide it behind a pillow on the page, or some other equally cute activity. Gabe couldn't get enough to playing with it and will often ask for the ball book when we are sitting around. It looks like there are several different books and toys on the website, so there is lots of choose from even if your child isn't obsessed with balls the way Gabe is.

Gabe was a definite fan of eebee's adventures, so I can wholeheartedly recommend the book and dvd for the 2 and under crowd. It would make a great holiday present, and eebee is offering some discount codes for 20% off and free shipping on the website. Here are the codes if you're interested:

free shipping on orders over $50
coupon code: hooray

20% off thru december 25, 2008
coupon code: eebee20

Check out what everyone else has to say about eebee's adventures on Parent Bloggers also!