For three years, I kept Ugly Kid Things out of my home, refusing to inhabit a world of hard plastic and primary colors. But a few weeks into New York City's stay-at-home orders this spring (and after running up and down the stairwell of our 11-story building had become my preschooler's daily form of exercise), my knees and I caved. A Little Tikes trampoline that is liberally billed as "mini" arrived the next day — in bright blue instead of charcoal gray, a harbinger of my discontent. Allegedly built for kids as old as six, it buckled under my daughter's pent-up pandemic energy within the week. The "balance bar" that's there for safety? Little Tikes must have meant to say "pole vault." And although I'd been told it was foldable, and there's a slightly pricier version with a collapsible handlebar, there was no stowing this thing under a bed when not in use. Worst of all, it was too wobbly and unstable to pass along to another child, so something we used for a week is now sitting in a landfill until the end of time. — Melissa Cantor, senior editor
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