Child's Play

Do you see how happy this kid looks? That's because he has absolutely no idea whatsoever what his parents and grandparents have to go through to put this "Exer-Saucer" together. If he had any clue that the serene toy that he's virtually trapped in, required a team of people to assemble it and originally consisted of over fifty parts, he might not be so happy.

I must point out that I had nothing to do with the assembly of this thing, but I did watch three well-educated, intelligent people work for the better part of two hours with an inordinate amount of confusion.

So, later I looked at the company's website to see if the confusion was justified or not. To say the least, a few things about the "Exer-Saucer" are disturbing to me.

1) "Requires 9 AAA batteries". Seriously? I have a Universal Remote that controls a television, stereo, Nintendo Wii, xBox 360, a DVD player, a VCR and a ton of other things that I don't even use it for. It uses 2 AAA batteries. But the "Exer-Saucer" with it's virtually limitless technological prowess requires 9 AAA batteries. That makes no sense.

2) "Fun Pond Theme". Really? If you look at the picture and imagine that this thing is, in fact, a pond... then that puts the child almost neck-deep in pond-water. I'm still relatively new to the whole baby concept, but that doesn't seem like a particularly fun theme to me.

3) "Folds flat for travel". The box that this thing came in is larger than the trunk of my SUV. If it was capable of being compacted into a much smaller size, why didn't they take advantage of that before shipping it to us in a refrigerator box?

Thanks for all of your help putting this thing together!!

** Note to my daughter: always appreciate what your loved ones do for you.