Lucy is a pretty smart kid. She can count to 10. She knows a ton of sign language. She talks in well formed sentences. She’s learning her shapes and colours.

None of this we’ve done through any sort of structured learning. Mostly through books and puzzles and us asking, constantly, “What is that?” or “You tell me” when she asks what something is.

So when Christy of Teach My Toddler asked if she could send us the all-in-one learning system she created, I was thrilled to have some sort of packaged program to try out on Lucy.

And then we failed miserably at it. Not because it’s at ALL a bad product. We, I think, just aren’t the right family for the product.

Teach My Toddler is separated into four sections: alphabet, numbers, shapes and colours. All those fun building blocks of pre-school, and the exact things we nonchalantly work on with Lucy. Each section includes a fun and colourful poster, flash cards, puzzle and book — all of which Lucy loves playing with.  The goal is to bring a specific set out out each day for 20 minutes (or as long as any attention-deficient toddler can play before moving on to something else, in that often frustrating but completely normal way they do), during which your child will learn all these elements.

The tote everything comes in is like those accordion folders you can get to file stuff in, which is excellent on many levels: It’s mostly toddler-proof because of the snap closure at the front. It’s tidy and organized and not too big. Easy to travel with. Easy to store. No garish colours that scream I AM FOR YOUR BABY/TODDLER they way so many do. Loved all of these aspects.

What we struggled with was setting aside “structured learning time” — 20 minutes or not. Not that I didn’t want to, and not that the product was hard for Lucy or difficult to use. It just…didn’t fit with us. I quite honestly can’t figure out why, except that we’re more free-flowing, on-the-move learners, as I mentioned above. Having something so obviously structured seemed to take the fun out of it somehow.

When we DID have it out, Lucy loved the posters and puzzles especially, especially identifying the animals.

What also plays against us is time: It’s hard enough to fit in quality time, dinner, walks, bath, books etc. when Lucy gets home from daycare and on weekends. If Lucy was home with me all the time, we’d have been wildly successful with this. I think this would be an excellent product for a stay-at-home parent or any sort of daycare centre/home that needs different activities to cycle through each day, and where Teach My Toddler could easily be built into a routine. It reminds me of Debbie, Lucy’s first childcare provider, who had a theme each week, and ran circle time every single day around that theme — she would LOVE this.

All that being said, we haven’t given up yet. I’m going to spread the pieces of each section around: Put up the posters downstairs, the books on our book shelves, the cards with Lucy’s other flashcards, and the puzzles in her toy bins. We’ll definitely enjoy using them, and I’ve no doubt they are helpful unto themselves.

$39.99, available in Durham at Mastermind, Pickering Town Centre and Pipsqueak Toys in Brooklin. Click here to take a virtual look inside the tote.

Before there were any grandchildren on the horizon, Eric’s mom bought this Little People Christmastime is Here! book because it looked like such a fun read.

And let me tell you, that shrewed lady was right. It’s the best. book. ever.

How many days weeks are we past Christmas? And do you think I can get the book out of Lucy’s little hands? No! We are still reading about Ho-Ho coming, and packing presents, and the cute-stumpy Little People kids whispering in the fat man’s ear! Seventy bajillion times! In a row! Lucy adores this book.

It’s got more than 50 lift-the-flaps (which she has memorized, by golly. Ask her where the star or cookies or airplane is, and she will find it without any hesitation), made of durable, hard, glossy cardboard stuff. Lift-the-flaps are awesome for babies and toddlers, but many of ours have fallen apart under Lucy’s exuberant/curious fingers. But these are super sturdy. The illustrations are incredibly colourful and interesting, and an entire page has numbered flaps like an Advent calendar — so it encompasses learning about shapes, objects, colours and numbers, on top of Christmas.

(And FYI, it avoids the whole religious aspect of the holiday, and focuses on decorating, toys, caroling, family and Santa.)

Based on the plethoa of reviews on the Interweb, Lucy and I are certainly not alone in the love for it.

I considered trying to stash this away in our Christmas packing cases, but couldn’t get it out of her hands long enough to do so.

We have placed a moratorium gently asked that people not buy Lucy toys for her upcoming birthday, and in keeping with that theme, are going to buy a stack of the other available Little People flap books (Look! A brand spakin’ new one that’s not even in stores yet!). She’s going to love them. And thankthelord, we won’t have to read about reindeer and snow in July.

Lucy has always enjoyed reading, but the past two weeks or so is suddenly obsessed with it. She will sit through all her books, then bring them to you again. And again.

She is rather smitten with this my family mirror book, which has a pull-out mirror at the side for baby and reader to make faces in and compare to the pictures in the book (Lucy loves smearing spit kisses all over it).

The premis of the book is sweet — family! love! names! But it’s actually really offensive and terribly stereotypical.

Mommy is doing laundry with the daughter. Daddy is playing ball with the son. Auntie is preparing picnic food with her niece. Uncle is flying a kite with his nephew. Grandma is feeding the birds with grandaughter and grandson, while Grandpa is pushing his grandaughter on the swing.

I’m bothered each time I read it. The women are preparing meals or doing chores. The men are playing with the kids. At least towards the end there’s some gender/sex-mingling with Nana and Pops.

Within our at-home family unit, we’re very “traditional”: a mummy, a daddy, a dog. I even do most of the housework and Lucy care, but that’s because I work part-time at home — if Eric was in my shoes, he’d do the same, and does so when he’s home after work and on weekends.

Our extended family has non-traditional elements to it: divorce, a gay family member, some that were single parents, some that don’t have children, some that live far away, some that aren’t married. I want Lucy to be exposed to all types of family situations not just in her real world, but in all mediums — I think it’s part of good child raising.

That being said, if the my family mirror book is representative of one particular family, then great — I’d be doing a disservice to take it away from Lucy especially since she obviously enjoys it so much. But it’s certainly not ours.

I haven’t looked really hard for “non-traditional” family books, but if anyone has suggestions on some, please share.

One of the things that drew me to the internet before Lucy was born was trying to figure out what to have ready when she arrived. I went mostly by the Babies R Us catalogue, which provided a checklist of items, but of course it was biased and tailored to their stock.

Other moms were really helpful, too, but it got to the point where my head was overloaded. (And then the half-naked chili episode happened and I got caught snarfing Timbits and all I could think about was food.)

So filed under the “What I wish I’d known before Lucy was born” category, I present the Essential New Baby Gear Guide (or, What Else to Buy Besides Diapers, Kleenex for the Sleep-Deprived Weeping and A Whole Other Wardrobe for the Post-Partum Body):

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You’ve probably heard the buzz around baby sign language: it helps pre-verbal babies communicate, reduces frustrations, teaches a second language.

Lucy can sign airplane, dog, more, apple and milk. She also recognizes many others, such as where, family, cracker, mommy and daddy. Unfortunately, her early signing skills probably mean she’ll be giving us the finger at 2, but we’ll deal with that later…

As a sign language graduate, I can’t say enough about how wonderful the classes were, not only because they taught Lucy and I a valuable skill, but because of how great our instructor, Karen, was.

I’ve never met a sweeter woman with babies. Karen was kind, patient, encouraging and fun. She runs 8-week and 2-day classes throughout Durham and Markham.

Check out her schedule here, and learn all about the internationallly-renowned (Brooklin based!) Wee Hands here.

Have an amazing (or awful) product you want reviewed? Want to be a guest reviewer? Email me at info@durhamregionkids.com