Back when I was a little girl of 4 or 5, I had some barbies and lots of soft toys left at my disposal. What was the word I used to refer to them? LAME!

Yeah. Those toys were lame (My hot-wheels collection was an exception, though. That was fab!).

Anyhoo, the point under consideration being that back in my time there weren’t as many cool toys for kids as are today. I swallowed this bitter pill of realization when LadyBoss handed me the Curious Cobo activity box for kids.

Before I could be all presumptuous by assuming it to be a pre-birthday gift, she handed me a paper that bore the name and address of a 5-year-old boy – Krishiiv Mittal. The rest of the story, as we know it, is this article.

Hmmm.

Now, before visiting Krishiiv, I hadn’t really opened the box. As a result, I was as excited as that little one (even more so maybe) to know what lay inside it. He, on the other hand, continued wearing a plain expression.

It was only after a little when he ran to the adjacent chamber that I realized what was up with him. This little man here wanted to get down to business without sparing a second. And whoosh! Came out the first activity set from the box!

I – Miss Scribbling Spirograph

In a jiffy, an excited Krishiiv emptied the contents onto the mat. There were sketch pens, a notepad, and multiple discs of different shapes with holes on them.

And of course, there was an instruction manual – the one that Krishiiv absolutely forgot to take note of. Hence, this happened:

And then with some intervention from me and his elder brother – Lakshya, Krishiiv figured out what exactly he was to make out of the Scribbling Spirograph.

Now, this looked fun. Psst! Tell you what? It also looked like an easy-peasy task, but that wasn’t the case! It’s quite tricky keeping one of your hands absolutely still, and having the other hand hold and move the sketch pen at a 90-degree angle.

Phew! No wonder this activity develops the child’s motor skills!

II – Find My Partner

I have to admit, I was a bit unfair with Krishiiv here. He caught a glimpse of the paint box lying in one of the activity sets in the Curious Combo box and was reaching for it, but I slyly passed him the other set.

Don’t ask me why I did that. There are some things in life that have no logic and reason.

This packet contained a set of cards which functioned like the classic memory game. What you gotta do is pick a card. See what it bears. Pick another card; if this one’s related to the first one, you get to keep both cards. Else, you simply turn both the cards down back into the deck.

This was a 2 or more player thingy and I had no intention of putting my frail memory to test. Hence, Nandita – Krishiiv’s mum intervened. And oh boy! What a charming sight it was to see the mother-son duo playing this game!

There was a whole lot of liveliness, a galore of laughter, and little hints of cheating.

With the promise that they’d play this game again with Krishiiv’s dad in the night, Nandita got him to pack this set and move on to the next.

III – Word Gear Machine

Now, this set brought out two things – the Pablo Picasso version of Krishiiv, and the remote of his Play Station.

I’m not kidding! Seeing the contents of the packet, he actually went hunting for his remote.

The task was to paint the constituents of the packet, assemble them in the form of a faux remote, and then frame 3-letter words with the wheels that move inside the said remote. Got your wits all tangled, have you? Allow the pictures to do the talking!

Krishiiv found it a tad bit difficult to assemble the remote, but once Nandita helped him create it; he couldn’t get enough of this other-worldly gear! He got lost in what seemed as a word-coining spree!

IV – Combizzle

This one was the last in the series, and it was quite intriguing. Let’s face it! The curiosity begins right from the name of the game.

The to-do of Combizzle comprised of getting the three layers of the game together and ‘double-locking’ them, as the manual instructed. Inside this window-like structure were to be placed 8 square cut-outs bearing 3 different signs and colors. The goal was to get the identical squares together.

And thus began the greatest of all feats up till now – assembling the window. Nandita and Krishiiv, from racking their brains to almost ending up in a tug of war, did everything to reach this result:

And once it was done, Krishiiv got the identical bros together within seconds. He is one smart kid, I’m telling y’all!

On that note, the quest of the Curious Cobo and the leisurely hours of our little play-date came to an end. Oh, how can I forget the posing-for-the-camera session that ensued! Other than being intelligent, the kid is one helluva poser! A cute poser at that!

Want to get this activity set for your kid? Find it for a price of Rs 645 on the website:  www.curiouscobo.com