Review: Playskool Busy Poppin’ Pals

This past weekend was our youngest daughter’s first Easter. We ended up getting her a lot of smaller gifts in her basket. But, when we got to my parents, we learned they got her a slightly larger gift; a Busy Poppin’ Pals toy from the brand Playskool.

This isn’t the first time I’ve seen this toy. I’ve walked past it quite a few times at our local department stores and never once considered buying it. At first, it looks cool; you have a bunch of animals that pop up out of the toy when your child pushes a button, turns a key, or flips some sort of switch. But, I also figured it was something she would grow tired of pretty quickly.

Well, we gave it to our daughter this past weekend and I have to say I’m impressed with how much she loves this toy.

Let me start out by saying she started playing with this toy before it even came out of the box. I had to pull it away from her and remove the packaging while my wife kept her distracted. She loves the toy that much.

At 8-months-old, she hasn’t quite figured out how to get the animals to pop out (other than picking up the toy and slamming it down) and we usually have to help her. But, it doesn’t matter. She just loves pushing the animals back down. In fact, her and our oldest daughter sat on the floor for several minutes doing just that. Our oldest daughter would flip the animal up and our youngest daughter would push it back down. And, she has played that game several times since getting this toy without showing signs of being bored.

Even though she loves this toy, I couldn’t help but notice some things that did concern me about it a bit.

First, when she pushes down the animals, she usually has her fingers under the lid and I think there is the potential for her getting pinched a bit (especially if someone isn’t paying attention and pushes the animal down for her when her fingers are in the way).

I also have to wonder about the durability of this toy. As I said before, she will pick it up and slam it on the floor. So far, she hasn’t broken it. But, when I examine it, I also don’t think it is a toy that will be able to withstand that abuse on a constant basis.

At least for the time being, this is a toy that was definitely worth what my parents spent on it. She may eventually get tired of it or break it. But, until then, she sure is having a lot of fun with it.