Joseph and Vivienne’s slide, Daniel and the music box, Vivienne and Joseph fold laundry, Daniel plays with a balloon, Vivienne’s first birthday cake, Vivienne’s birthday presents, Joseph reads Owl at Home, Joseph sings in Swiss German, Dowel set up, First action on the dowel swing, Vivienne swings, Joseph’s exercises, Joseph improvises verses in Swiss German, Mobile Daniel, Joseph reads from the Bible, Joseph talks to Grandma, Vivienne’s second birthday cake, Vivienne’s mechanical top, Vivienne tries to spin the top, Birthday bubbles, Vivienne’s smartphone music, Vivienne blows out her candles, Vivienne sings the ABC song, Vivienne improves on her ABC song.
For context, you may want to read up about what was going on on Janet’s blog.
I am also adding the toy xylophone Vivienne received as a gift. It looks great – it’s wooden, colorful, has integrated mallet rests – everything about its Italian design says “great xylophone for kids.” (Okay, an instrumentalist may suspect that a toy xylophone won’t sound 100% right.) At any rate, I know I would have bought it. Unfortunately, this thoughtful gift, which the kids loved, has been returned to its box to safeguard the parents’ sanity. This is what our Chicco wood xylophone sounds like. To my utter disbelief, customer support at Chicco thought it sounded normal. Woodworking for Mere Mortals shows that (a) I could make one that sounds better and (b) I have neither the tools nor the time. We haven’t quite decided what to do with it…
Words cannot express….
“After all, the bars produce different sounds.”
Do they call it a xylophone? Would they sell as a toy a “screwdriver” shaped like a hammer? A “bicycle” in which the pedals go around but you move sideways? (Hmm, the latter might be kind of fun.)
The rest was fun! I especially liked seeing the other side of our phone conversation.
It says “Xylophone” on the box – and in checking that out, I discovered a QR code that links to a demo. If I find the time, I’ll scan it and read it – no earlier than next week.
You might enjoy this bike, then… It’s the best video I could find in terms of the music not being rap or vulgar (here I heard one or two words that are grandkid incompatible, mumbled) and the video not being full of epilepsy-inducing cuts and zooms.
What will they think of next?
Maybe donate it to the Leistal Fire Festival?
The Liestal Chienbäse won’t be running out of unpainted wood anytime soon. I don’t know – I like the looks, maybe I can repurpose it into a bird feeder… and I still have the visuals of Joseph going to town on this toy, plus it was a gift from good friends, so the emotional barrier to just dumping it unceremonially is high.