February 23, 2008

Singing toothbrushes


Getting kids to brush their teeth can be a difficult job. They just don't want to take the time. So I'm always buying new toothbrushes that have some sort of gimmick. The one that's working the best in our house right now is Tooth Tunes by Hasbro.

We had tried this last fall, but did not have success. Then my sister said her kids loved it and added that anything to get tweens to brush their teeth is worth it, even if the toothbrushes costs a little more. So Grandma got all the grandchildren a Tooth Tunes.

Grandma also got an education in popular songs with kids. A 10-year-old boy at the Wal-Mart where grandma shopped explained to her the popularity of High School Musical, and suggested that Corbin Bleu's tunes were okay. Weirdly, my mom knew about the song "YMCA" because she had done aerobics to it. Okay.

The music only works when you are physically brushing your teeth. It stops if you stop brushing. The songs play for 2 minutes.

My sister has a pretty good idea for an updated version. She would like to be able to sync the toothbrush up to her computer (maybe via a USB connection) so she could download new songs. The concept of a computerized tooth brush is almost bizarre at first. But I think this could be viable.

In other parenting tech news, we have signed onto the new Build-A-Bearville. So far it is not as elegant as we had hoped. I will write more later.

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