Baseballs, Basketballs, Footballs, Soccerballs....

It does not matter what kind of ball it is (although lately he prefers basketballs) Z is obsessed with toy balls! He has a ball pit filled with different types of balls that he has been given. He sleeps with a baseball, takes a football where ever we go, plays basketball morning, noon and night and even prefers to read books that have balls featured in the story!

Last week at the library I was looking through their DVD collection and found the jackpot of all movies. It is a movie all about balls! I showed it to Z in the library and he carried it all over the place with a great big smile on his face. The movie is one of the Baby Pro Sports videos called Let's Play Baseball-Basketball-Soccer Sports. These videos, according to their website, are designed to "inspire physically active lifestyles for young children". At first my husband and I thought this was ridiculous. Z requests this movie all of the time by signing ball and bringing us the DVD case. He sits there mesmerized as the classical music plays and the narrators beautiful voice explains what is happening on the screen. We both thought that watching this movie did nothing more than encourage our son to be a couch potato.

That was until we turned the movie off....he then runs to his basketball hoop to shoot baskets or he goes to find his soft baseball and throws it around the room. This video even taught him how to kick a soccer ball! We had been trying for a long time and now he imitates the children in the video and can not only recognize his soccer ball but knows what to do with it :) I really do like this movie for many reasons. First, Z loves it and it makes him so happy to watch it. He gets so excited about the video and loves to imitate the kids after. Second, it shows not only babies and children playing the sport but also youth and then pros playing as well. It is a very nice progression through each of the three sports. Third, it is a very calming video. The music and the woman's voice are very soothing and nice to listen to. At a party last weekend we had more than one adult get sucked into the movie because they enjoyed listening to the woman's voice. And finally, I love it because the baseball segment is just long enough for me to take a shower ;)

Thank you Baby Pro Sports! We have to return this video to the library today (sad day) but we are going to check out one of the other Baby Pro DVDs that they have. We also plan to check it out again for Z's plane trip coming up soon. On second thought, we might have to convince Daddy to let us buy our own copy for the trip....it seems like it will be well worth the money!