PLAYFUL PARENTING

Parents will need beach balls, balance beams, and birdseed--plus a lot of stamina--as they climb, crawl, and clap their way through these adorably alliterative activities with their babies and toddlers (a.k.a. here as ""munchkin,"" ""Ms. Choosy,"" ""your lookalike,"" and ""your little clown""). Based on the authors' experiences in physical education and as mothers, this collection is a combination of overblown everyday acts (""Walkaway Two"" has the twelve-month-old walking up a grassy slope in a park; ""Tickle Toes"" is an ordinary toe-touching routine) and exercises usually done in a toddlers' gymnastics class (""Wibble Wobble"" requires a tilt-board; ""Mushroom"" is played under a parachute). Organized by two-month spans from six weeks to three years, the activities are roughly geared to developmental stages-but pity the poor parent whose child isn't walking by a year. Each chapter also includes brief sections on problem-solving, self-awareness, language, and socialization; another feature is ""Silly Pool""--in which instant pudding, tortilla flour, or cooked spaghetti is placed in a wading pool for the child to ""smear, smush, squeeze and smack."" (Later, parents are advised to tell their children to stop playing with their food. . . .) For a more balanced range of activities and helpful information, see The Pleasure of Their Company (p. 466). This is the kind of play that makes hard work for parents.