Play Mat = Heaven

My son loves his play mat. Seriously loves it. It is the Baby Einstein Seek and Discover Activity Gym, and honestly it wasn't our first choice. We had originally registered for the Tiny Love activity mat, but Babies R Us stopped selling it for a while so we had to quickly decide on something else. I looked at our options, and the reviews on Target.com's website sold me on the mat we currently have. Everyone kept raving about this star that comes with the mat. While our son didn't love it right away (he, honestly, didn't like being put down during his first few weeks) he soon fell in love with it ... especially the star!

It comes with five toys: a duck, a sun, a cardinal, an apple, and flashcards. Ours was actually missing the flashcards, but I didn't see the point of returning it for something I wasn't really sure he would use anyway. At four months of age, he has been grabbing at the duck, cardinal, and sun and is starting to work on his "pinching" skills.

It also comes with the aforementioned star. Each point of the star is a different color, and the center of the star is a smiley face that lights up and plays classical music. It has two volume settings and two play settings; you can either have it play continuously, or you can set it to play when the baby nudges one of the arches it is attached to. We usually keep it on the latter setting, and it seems to have encouraged our son to kick and dance to get the star to turn on. Either way, he grins from ear to ear when it starts to play.

In addition, it comes with a baby-safe mirror that can be attached to the gym arches. He hasn't enjoyed this aspect of the gym as much, however we have taken the mirror off and used it for tummy time and on his bouncy seat. It actually helped him enjoy tummy time a bit and gave him something to look at.

The mat itself is very colorful as are the arches it comes with. We chose this mat, not only for the rave reviews, but also because it is unisex ... wonderful because we didn't know the sex of our baby AND because we'll be able to use it for a future child no matter their sex. Also, the mat is machine washable and very easy to spot clean.

For what it's worth, I highly recommend this particular play mat. Just my humble opinion.