Fisher Price Twirlin' Whirlin' Garden

My son was given this toy as a present, and found it highly entertaining for about two days. I bring it out every few months for another two days! It is a big lump of plastic with a cloth mat attached, and a lot of stacking bricks. You can throw the bricks on the mat, and then fold the mat over and velcro it shut, which reduces the size by half and sort of keeps it all together. The bricks do fall out though. There are 4 spinning round bits on which you are supposed to stack the bricks in a big tower. There is also a little see-saw and some flowers that bob up and down, that you can also stack bricks on. Once you've built your towers you ...

Most parents love Fisher Price. Who wouldn't. If you think about the many multi-coloured, flashing, moving, musical, noise-making child-occupiers you can buy, most of them come from the Fisher Price stable. And, by and large, they get it right. The toys are well-constructed, the kids love them, and some of them even help your children learn! All of which makes it even more inexplicable that something like the Twirlin' Whirlin' Garden exists. My wife and I saw the TV adverts, and the box in Mothercare. It looked great - so many things moving at once, a mat for baby to sit on, flashing lights - what more could you ask for? So we bought it as an ...