I had some money that had been sent at Christmas for Seth and I'd been waiting for something to spend it on. Having gone to Kidz in the middle exhibition, which was great by the way, I was armed with catalogues filled with goodies. After lots of thought, and a phone call to the company to discuss it I chose a switch and an adapter. I had considered getting one of the switch adapted toys but instead got the adaptor because that meant I could use the button with any battery operated toy which are cheaper plus get greater use out of it. The point of the switch is that its big, red and quite flat so Seth can press it to activate a toy.
Only it hasn't worked as successfully as I'd hoped. The Christmas money only bought the button and adaptor so I still needed the toy. One of the pre adapted toys the company sold was a car that made lots of noise, flashed its lights and then moved forward a bit. So I bought the mainstream alternative. When it all arrived I was very excited, feeling very clever. The switch connects to the adapter and I then attempted to fit the adapter into the battery compartment of the toy. The rather flimsy piece of metal snapped. After a call to the company I got a replacement but then discovered that it still wasn't going to work... The adapter works by breaking the connection of the battery to the toy so once you've turned it on you control the toy by pressing the switch.
However with his toy, turning it on isn't enough. You press on the driver's head to actually make it work and so you'd have to do this as well as pressing the switch. Having gone through Seth's toy boxes we don't have any battery operated toys that don't need something else pressing on them to make them work! So my adapter is useless until I buy another toy that works in that very specific way.
Plus the car toy is pretty glitchy in that you have to press down on its head in quite a specific way to make it work, something Seth's non existent fine motor skills are not up to....its why we need the switch! So I now have a switch that I can't use with anything and a new toy that's pretty useless; I'm so glad I waited so carefully before spending his Christmas money.
I will be trying to return the toy or at least sell on and then I'll go down the pre-adapted route! Long term I am confident that the switch will prove to have been a good idea (!)
