Need a gift for the little helpmeet-to-be in your life?

[Anny Nym]

We once had a very old one from the 60s to play with, similar to this one, on which my dad refurbished the electricity.

I tell you, that thing worked like a charm, we made mini pancakes with it. But I think it´s illegal to sell it as a toy nowadays! :lol:

[PennySycamore]

We once had a very old one from the 60s to play with, similar to this one, on which my dad refurbished the electricity.

I tell you, that thing worked like a charm, we made mini pancakes with it. But I think it´s illegal to sell it as a toy nowadays! :lol:

Anny Nym, I've never seen one quite like that! I think the ones that most of us were referring to (made by Kenner) were a bit dangerous because kids could too easily burn themselves. But, yeah, you could bake things in them. I also had a play iron that actually heated up when you plugged it in.

[trailmix2014]

I always wanted an Easy Bake Oven. I loved to bake. My sister had one, but I was never allowed to use it.

Guess what my clone, er, son, is getting for his birthday? Yep, a black Easy Bake Oven. We are going to have so much fun with that. :)

[nokidsmom]

Anny Nym, I've never seen one quite like that! I think the ones that most of us were referring to (made by Kenner) were a bit dangerous because kids could too easily burn themselves. But, yeah, you could bake things in them. I also had a play iron that actually heated up when you plugged it in.

OMG, @ Anny Nym, that's an Easy Bake Oven and then some. Why, you could make soup with it, looking at that stock pot.

I also had an iron that heated up when plugged in. Why the iron and not the Easy Bake oven, I will never know.

[Anny Nym]

OMG, @ Anny Nym, that's an Easy Bake Oven and then some. Why, you could make soup with it, looking at that stock pot.

I also had an iron that heated up when plugged in. Why the iron and not the Easy Bake oven, I will never know.

Ah, was the discussion catered to the Kenner´s Easy Bake Oven only? Sorry, didn´t know that! :embarrassed:

This brand is not sold here, but hey, our´s was pretty cool too I think: Real enamel, the bake oven part and the oven plates heated up real fast (I don´t know if that was due to my dad´s tweaking or if that was original :mrgreen: ) and the one we had, it had a lid to close over the oven plates like a real old oven would have - and YES, we too, learned the age-old life lesson of "Hot oven is going to be hot - don´t touch it!" quite a few times :lol:

It came with the tiny pans and and pots and even a tea pot and cutlery. The cutlery was out of rather questionable material, actually. One time a spoon half-melted away in my brother´s cup and he drank it anyway... (didn´t do him any serious harm btw - today he is a mountain infantry officer)

Yes, pancakes, hot cocoa, and we also roasted pickled onions and made tiny scrambled eggs ... ^^ It all originally belonged to my aunt. We had alot of toys from various generations of relatives. Today, my parents would be called Hipsters, lol

PS: Just googled it, apparently this brand is still produced, only slightly modified. I am seriously thinking now about making it a christmas present for my kiddos this year...!

Heatable iron sounds really cute too.

[Hane]

When I was a kid in the late '50s/early '60s, my cousin got an amazing Lionel electric train set and I felt skunked not to have gotten one because I was a girl. Around that time, Lionel came out with a pink train "for girls," and I thought it was the stupidest damn thing I'd ever seen.

[Coco]

Anny Nym that little stove is so adorable! Those aren't don't even show up on American Amazon :lol:

[Anny Nym]

Anny Nym that little stove is so adorable! Those aren't don't even show up on American Amazon :lol:

:)

Yes, I get all nostalgicy and fuzzy too - my oldest would love it, but with a additional 3 year old and soon-a-baby, maybe I delay it one or two years to buy one. I could dig out our old one and see if it will come back to life for a 3rd generation, although. :lol:

[Anny Nym]

When I was a kid in the late '50s/early '60s, my cousin got an amazing Lionel electric train set and I felt skunked not to have gotten one because I was a girl. Around that time, Lionel came out with a pink train "for girls," and I thought it was the stupidest damn thing I'd ever seen.

A pink train ... :shifty-kitty: Just. Nope!

[PennySycamore]

Anny Nym,

I love that stove! I love how it looks like a real stove.

[Anny Nym]

Already 2 fans, that company really needs to expand to the USA :lol:

Toys, that are tiny replicas of the original, without the ÜBER-infantilization and neon-pinkification, are my absolute favorite choice anyway.

[Anny Nym]

Hey, while we are at the topic - what do you think of this doll stroller? Your honest answers, dear FJites!

http://www.retro-pedals.de/produkte/192 ... -8750.html

[Rescinded and Mended]

I think that stroller is absolutely adorable. :wink-kitty: My only worry would be leaving it outside, since it would get moldy and rot if it rained.

When my son was 8, I bought him an Easy Bake Oven. He absolutely loved it. His only complaint was that it was pink, since that was the only color I could find it in at the time.

Somehow, I now feel I've come full circle in this thread. :lol:

[PennySycamore]

Hey, while we are at the topic - what do you think of this doll stroller? Your honest answers, dear FJites!

http://www.retro-pedals.de/produkte/192 ... -8750.html

That pram is so charming! I'd have loved to have a real one like that back when I was having babies. Maybe I should get one for my grandchildren to play with.

[Coco]

The stroller would be difficult to keep clean imo, esp. if it's used with house pets, but then on the other hand, a lot of wicker antiques have stood the test of time. It does look very well made.

I love things for children that are functional. It teaches them how to make things last and how "toys" aren't an entirely different category from other furniture/belongings.

[smittykins]

I also had an iron that heated up when plugged in.

I seem to recall having one as well--I think it just got barely warm.

[acheronbeach]

LOL, I inherited my (boy) cousins' easy-bake oven. It was made in the 70's and was a lovely avocado green.

They make them in neutral colours now, I gather.

[SoybeanQueen]

I like IKEA's toy kitchen. Not pink, and it has some cute accessories to go with it. http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/S49874533/

We still have a plastic toy kitchen from my oldest, otherwise I'd be getting the IKEA version for my son this year. Now he's getting the toy workbench instead.

Norwex makes a kid-sized cleaning set. It's the same material as their regular dust mitt and cloths, and the mop pads, just sized a little smaller. My niece loves hers.

[Hane]

That was me the the Snoopy Sno-Cone machine. I wanted one of those sooooo bad. Asked for one every year, never got it. Then when I was in grad school. my Mom was at Big Lots and saw one for 5 bucks so she bought it for me for Christmas. Still have it. Took 20 years but I finally got it!

Snoopy Sno-Cone Machine! When my daughter was six, she really wanted one. At the time, I was trying to get her to stay in her own bed at night because I was engaged and didn't want her wandering in on me and her future stepfather once we got married and he moved in. So I instituted a sticker program: for every night she stayed in her own bed, I put a sticker on the calendar. She would qualify for the Snoopy Sno-Cone Machine once she got a certain number of stickers.

One day, she was visiting her father and he took her out shopping. He (not knowing about my planned bribe incentive) asked her what she'd like, and she came home with the coveted Snoopy Sno-Cone Machine! Hating to be a wet blanket, I had to point out to him that he had been played. To his credit, he agreed that the Snoopy Sno-Cone Machine would have to remain in lockdown until she had achieved her goal. (As I've always said, he was a lousy husband but a heck of an ex-husband.)

She's 36 now, and recently bought herself a Snoopy Sno-Cone Machine tee shirt.

[Hane]

Toys that are tiny replicas of the original, without the ÜBER-infantilization and neon-pinkification, are my absolute favorite choice anyway.

I agree! When I was a kid in the '50s, most kitchen/cleaning/household/lawncare/workshop-type toys were little replicas of the originals. You could actually bake in the cute little baking pans.

And the little wicker pram you posted? Adorable!

OT True Story: When I was in my 20s, I had a landlady who had been born in Germany and came to the US as a young military wife. She had a good-sized fullscale wicker pram, much like the toy one, that she had used to take her baby out walking every day. The pram was in our cellar, where the washing machine was.

One day, when I was 8.5 months pregnant, I was carrying my laundry down to the cellar and lost my balance on the stairs. I fell off the side of the open stairway--and landed in the pram! It was big enough to accommodate a very pregnant woman, and its wheels were on springs which cushioned my fall. So I am eternally grateful to a well-made German pram!

[NotALoserLikeYou]

Fundies are silly. When I worked at a preschool ALL the kids liked to play with the toy kitchen and when we did real cooking they were thrilled. We once had a fancy English tea and a the boys were into it. And the girls liked to play with all of the "boy" toys, too.

I have three girls and i bought them baby dolls and a high chair and a doll bed that they completely avoided. They did like doll strollers for their stuffed animals.

[Coco]

Fundies are silly. When I worked at a preschool ALL the kids liked to play with the toy kitchen and when we did real cooking they were thrilled. We once had a fancy English tea and a the boys were into it. And the girls liked to play with all of the "boy" toys, too.

I have three girls and i bought them baby dolls and a high chair and a doll bed that they completely avoided. They did like doll strollers for their stuffed animals.

That's similar to my daughter. She doesn't play baby dolls much, but she loves to make messes in the kitchen with me cooking. It makes me sad because i loved to play with dolls. My sisters and i played dolls until we were in our early teens. i wanted to go through that again and get her a lot of tiny pretend stuff. She has beautiful dolls, and I want to teach her to sew clothes for them and all that, but nope, so far she's not interested. She plays cars most of the time. She makes roads and towns out of lincoln logs and train tracks, but the cars are constantly talking. Even her markers carry on intense conversations with each other when she's drawing. I wish i had a recording of the time one of the her toy cars started "crying" and the momma car asked it if it hurt its wheel. :lol: i can't wait to get her started on actual building sets like knex or goldieblox. Maybe one day she'll be an engineer or city developer or dispatcher. It's terrible that fundies limit what their kids can play with because of gender stereotypes.

[micatite]

I agree! When I was a kid in the '50s, most kitchen/cleaning/household/lawncare/workshop-type toys were little replicas of the originals. You could actually bake in the cute little baking pans.

IKEA sells a kids baking set that has a small rolling pin and things like mini fluted tart, bundt or loaf pans that can go in the oven (I think), which I like. I had the Holly Hobby Bake Oven (that functioned like the Easy Bake but looked like an old cast iron stove) and what always frustrated me was the teensy little measurements of water and how interminably long it took to bake by the light of the bulb, and when you ran out of the powder packs, then what? As a kid I much preferred to make real 9x13 cakes with mom's help, then cover them with icing and their weight in sprinkles and/or silver dragees.

Oddly enough, though, now that I think about it, I still have a little one-cup liquid measuring cup that came from a more realistic toy baking set, a la IKEA's, that I had as a kid. I took it in the office for measuring out water for oatmeal and the like since it won't break like glass might.

[micatite]

OT True Story: When I was in my 20s, I had a landlady who had been born in Germany and came to the US as a young military wife. She had a good-sized fullscale wicker pram, much like the toy one, that she had used to take her baby out walking every day. The pram was in our cellar, where the washing machine was.

One day, when I was 8.5 months pregnant, I was carrying my laundry down to the cellar and lost my balance on the stairs. I fell off the side of the open stairway--and landed in the pram! It was big enough to accommodate a very pregnant woman, and its wheels were on springs which cushioned my fall. So I am eternally grateful to a well-made German pram!

I'm sure you were. The question is, how in the heck did you manage to get OUT of the pram at 8.5 months?

[docmom]

I'd love to get that wicker pram for my daughter,but alas, despite all my best efforts (and I really tried), she LOVES the pink plastic. The pinker and plasitcier the better as far as she's concerned. She'd love the cleaning set.