(Read Part 1 here)

After dinner, I started unwrapping the packaging. Though the plastic cover had protected the musical table well, it also meant more effort was needed to finally ‘excavate’ the table out, with eight sides of the plastic cover secured to the box.

Reading the blog post by Ian’s mummy, I realised there were two different packaging, and ours were the older 2007 edition. Besides the differences in the type of batteries used (ours uses 3 AA batteries, not sure about the 2008 edition), the packaging was also quite different. Looks like Leapfrog noticed how fragile their packaging near the handle was (which resulted in ours being torn) and revamped it. The toy itself looked very much similar though.

Darius was watching me unwrap the table the whole time, and instead of getting impatient, he seemed very interested in what I was doing. ^^

Finally with the table top out of the box and wiped clean, Catherine placed Darius on our Pooh playmat in a sitting position, while I put the table top in front of him, without the table legs attached.

The operation was straightforward even without the attached operating manual – there was an on/off switch which allowed for two volume levels. Beside it was the language switch, which allowed us to select between English and French. The latter was of course redundant to us; how I wished the alternate language was Mandarin instead. ^^|

"Hmm... Will this thing explode on me?"

Darius’ reaction to new toys/things has always been the careful approach, and this was no exception. He kept his hands a distance from the table and just looked at it cautiously. This continued even after we demonstrated how the various instruments on the table worked, and even guiding his hands to them.

We knew we had to take it slow and let Darius gradually gotten used to his new toy so we didn’t rush him. Moreover it was getting close to his sleeping time and he was probably getting tired.

Several instrument-like gadgets were on the table, which included a 4-key piano, cello with a vertical slider, trombone with a horizontal slider, three drums, a maraca roller with beads and a banjo with a lever. We rotated the table once in a while to see which instrument would catch his attention most.

So what do you think is the first instrument that got his attention?

How about making a guess before reading on?

(Hint: Read One Week with the Exersaucer)

Ta Da!

He laid his hands on the maraca roller with beads first! Did you guess it right? ^^

His first ‘roller’ experience was with the exersaucer, followed by the rollers on the jumperoo, so it’s no big surprise that the maraca roller will attract his attention first. Unlike the previous rollers though, besides the sounds from the rolling beads, the music from the table would also be triggered, producing sounds the instrument would conjur in real life, followed by a random melodies out of a list of 50 melodies, plus some flashing lights. These were bound to further catch a child’s attention and interests.

After meddling with the roller, Darius started to reach out for the lever on the banjo and when pulled, the spinner in the instrument would spin rapidly while producing melodies and lights at the same time. He seemed to be very fascinated with the spinner and would reach for it, but couldn’t as it was covered with a transparent plastic cover. ^^|

We then attached the table legs and supported Darius onto a standing position with his hands on the table top. He supported himself by the table pretty well, though we did notice the table sliding a little forward. We have read of this issue when reading the user reviews but thought it would not slide after placing it on our rubber playmat. Anyway, we have learnt that this sliding issue could be resolved by pasting rubber stoppers below each of the legs, which we will do soon.

"It's fun, but I need to sleep... Zzzz..."

Anyway when he was in the standing position, Darius could not spare an extra hand to play with the instruments anymore without first losing his balance when he was not supported by us. Looks like it will take him some time before he can play the instruments himself while using the other hand to support himself. ^^

By the way, Ian’s mummy also mentioned about difficulty in removing the table legs after they were attached to the table. For our case it wasn’t so as they could be easily removed by pressing a tab near the connecting parts. Maybe the 2008 edition had made the detachment harder due to safety issues?

With that, we brought Darius to sleep and he sure was very tired, falling asleep very soon with minimal fuss. I wondered if the cause was the musical table? ^^|

In conclusion, we were pleased with our Leapfrog Learn & Groove Musical Table and felt it was valued for money, even when we had only spent less than 30 minutes on it. And from now on, we will have one more fun activity to do with Darius together! ^^

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