Playing House Is NOT for Children

Ok, I'm on a roll with Fisher Price, so I'm going to continue.

I purchased the Fisher Price Laugh and Learn Home because, god, doesn't it look like fun?  From a child psychology standpoint, the experts say that if it looks neat and interesting to you, then your child will probably also find it so.  Well, this just looked really neat- a little door that works; a facade that has the exterior of the house on one side and the interior of the house on the other; a mailbox slot; a working window...

and an analog clock that has both hands that move.

Ok, so my first complaint:  there is a cute little song about numbers that is tripped when you turn the hands on the clock.  But the song only counts up to 10.

Uhm, the last time I checked, the numbers on the clock range from 1 to 12...

ok, so, there's that problem.

Then there's the ball drop slot on the side of the house.  It also counts only up to 10.  And it plays the same song repeatedly when you any number of balls in the slot.  I would think that it would play different songs for the number of balls you drop, particularly because it is difficult to understand what the voice is saying about the count of the balls.

Ok, so problem #3:  The address numbers on the house exterior.  They range from 1 to 9.  What about 0???  Honestly!  I mean, I understand why you'd leave off "10" and "11" and "12" because in an address, such as they have, it would just be "1" "0" and "1" "1" and "1" "2".  Oh, wait, that's right- they only have the digits once.  It's quiet sad because the little roller that is inside could have been made big enough to accommodate digits 0-9 in each of the slots.  That would be more realistic for learning addresses, wouldn't it?

Problem #4:  the shapes in the door and on the interior of the house:  these seem to have no tie-in to the house songs or sounds AT ALL.  It's just like they were thrown in as an afterthought.  Unlike the Fisher Price Laugh and Learn Kitchen that talks about all the parts of the kitchen (except the trash..hmm...) in a song of some sort, the House completely omits them!

Which brings me to problem #5:  The door itself.  I had such high hopes.  It has a cute little key and keyhole that you can insert the key....if you have the knowledge of how to hold the door still.  The door is so touchy to move, that every attempt my daughter makes to put the key in the keyhole, causes the door to move out of reach.   What kind of crappy design is that?  You'd think that Fisher Price would have tested these out.  There is NO WAY to put the key in the keyhole without the door moving away from you unless you hold it still with the other hand or block the door.  Same goes for the shapes.  How can that teach a child anything?

And then there's the key itself (problem #6):  it has such a short stock on it and such a large handle that it falls out of the keyhole unless you can balance it just right.  It actually does turn in the keyhole, but it doesn't affect the door handle at all (problem #7).  If you're going to teach someone about keys and locks, then it would be helpful if, I dunno, the lock actually does something?!

Problem #8 comes with the tippiness of the design.  It's intended audience is the transitioning crawler to walker stage child, which means that they're learning to pull themselves up on things.  This is such an attractive and intended tool for doing just that, that you'd think that FP would have made the base weighted so that it wouldn't tip over.

But they didn't.  Very tippy.  You can't let your child pull on it, or it will be them pulling the house down on top of themselves.

And finally, there's the radio on the interior side of the house for Problems #9, #10 (#11 and #12...but since the house doesn't count that high, I'm not sure I can list those two).  There are four radio buttons on a radio and each one of them plays a song...a song WAY to complex to learn and WAY to fast and garbly to make out clearly.  REMEMBER WHO YOUR AUDIENCE IS, FISHER PRICE!  It's a bunch of tiny, tiny children.  SIMPLE, REPETITIVE songs and instructions are how we educate them the best; the radio seems to be a complete waste of batteries and a complete educational cop-out.

At least it doesn't have an insidious Spanish language track.