So, the whole “mess free” tag line for Color Wonder suckered Santa into thinking my two year old would enjoy to receive some Color Wonder markers in his stocking. Fortunately for Santa, he drops those gifts and then he leaves for 364 days because they didn’t QUITE live up to the excitement.
Did you notice these things say “3+” on them? Nope, neither had I until today. What the hucksters touting this as a frustration free coloring experience for Mommy left out is that there is an approximately 3 second delay while the colors develop. That is three seconds of my toddler screaming, “NO! IT’S BROKEN! IT’S BROKEN! WANT TO COLOR!” every time he puts pen to paper. (No, it’s not Crayola’s fault. He’s TWO. But consider yourself warned that if you didn’t win the Terrific Twos lottery, this product should wait.)
I think this is a great product, and I love the idea. But I’m going to pack them up for a few months while we work on frustration tolerance and managing expectations. I will go back to hovering and saying “Only on the paper!” every few seconds. It means I’ll police the kiddo art time a little more, but at least he’ll be smiling.
The product itself is high quality. The illustrations are cute and full of additional details that show up after the child colors the pages. I would recommend this as an “on the go” activity for slightly older kids- it will be perfect for Grandma’s house or car trips in just a few more months.
Today he asked for these and played happily with them for half an hour. I give up. Two year olds are amazing, wonderful, impossible, delightful, awe inspiring, and completely baffling. 🙂
The great thing is, that when your little one is just a bit older, he’ll think it’s “magic” that the colors show up like they do! But I can totally understand his frustration!
I should bring them out again and see how he feels about them now. He’s always asking to color, but he’s dependable about drawing on everything but the paper, so it turns into a VERY frustrating activity…