Tiny Love Super Deluxe Lights and Music Gymini Activity Gym

Product Description:
"Enrich your baby's environment with the Gymini Super Deluxe Mat.  Bold colors and many tactile features are sure to engage the baby as they discover their new world.  Classical music will stimulate their senses.  The lights on the mat will encourage tummy time play.  This is designed for birth and up."

REVIEW

So, as you may have noticed on this blog, I do book reviews as a part of blog tours (and can explain that term if you want me to).  I won a "best review" award for one of my reviews and used the winnings to purchase this mat off Amazon for my son.  

The Good
I absolutely adore this mat!  It lives up to every single promise mentioned not only in the manufacturer's description, but also in the description provided by Google.  By the way, I promise I'm not being paid for this posting...I just love this mat sooooooo much!  

First, I love its bright colors.  A lot of baby products come in pukey pastels (can you tell I'm not a pastel fan?) that remind me way too much of Easter.  Not this mat - it is eye-catching, beautiful, and fun to look at for both baby and Momma.

Second, there is a lot to do on this mat.  Oh sure, I get it is a play mat and it is designed to entertain babies who are progressing through the developmental stages.  It did, however, entertain me a great deal as well.  Let's see, there are 5 hanging toys: a ring with little teether things on it, a giraffe that has long limbs to grab and that has a rattle, and elephant that vibrates if you pull the string in its back (and has crinkly ears), a parrot that spins on its ring, and a monkey that dangles.  There is also much fun to be had within the mat itself, including a big crinkly elephant ear that Drexel loves to play with.  Seriously, this kid will lay on his tummy and spend several minutes at a time just crinkling that elephant's ear!  There is also a butterfly with a crinkly wing that he grabs to play with, but that is significantly smaller than the elephant ear (and hence helps promote hand-eye coordination), a squeaky toy hidden under a picture of a bird, a picture of a giraffe that has a tail that is loose that Rex loves to grab and yell at (he seems to like yelling at giraffes), a mirror along one "post", and a field of three flowers on another corner that light up with the music that plays either Mozart or a cyclical repetition of several nursery rhymes.

Third, the aforementioned hanging toys are easily detachable from the mat.  This means that we can easily adhere them to Drexel's carseat or the diaper bag, thereby having them handy when we go out of the house somewhere.  He has a familiar toy and is thus more comfortable in an unfamiliar situation, and we know where there are toys that he likes.  Also, this mat folds up and secures with snaps very easily - I love that it is easy to store and/or transport!

Drexel, the ultimate reviewer of this mat since he is the one who spends the most time on it, cannot talk yet but I'm sure he would say he loves this mat.  It has helped with his coordination in the sense that the hanging toys giving him something to grab at has helped with his reaching for items.  Dahmon, my husband, modeled how to use the switch on the music box and now Drexel will crawl over to the switch and move it back and forth.  Generally he puts it on the Mozart music setting, thereby showing me that he likes the classical music over the nursery rhymes.  He will lay on this mat for a long time and play with its various parts.  I know that if I need to leave the room for a moment, he will be perfectly safe as there are no small moving parts that he can get off and choke on.  He has a lot of fun when he is on this mat, and that is what is important.

The Bugly
The only nitpicky things that I have to say about this mat are that the music box does not have a volume control (most kids toys don't, and that annoys me), and the music is repetitive (though not as badly so as many children's toys).  That's it.  I love this mat, and can truly and honestly find no other faults in it...except that now that Drexel is beginning to crawl I kind of wish it were a little bigger.

Overall
Overall, as has been stated already, I LOVE this mat.  My son has made huge leaps forward in hand-eye coordination due to playing with the hanging toys and grab-able parts.  He loves it, I love it, my husband comments how much Drexel loves it. We all just love it.  :)

On a 1 to 10 rating scale, I give this product a 10!!