Everyone once in awhile we highlight something just a little over the top that still fits within our mantra of making your lives easier. And we think the Sweetpea3 Kids MP3 Player fits that bill.

Despite their fascination with your tech gadgets, do your kids really need their own MP3 players? Perhaps not. But wait, what if it meant that you didn’t have to keep hitting repeat ad nauseam for their favourite songs? What if you could build playlists of songs and stories that would help lull them to sleep, or keep them entertained in the car without you having to do anything? What if they could control the soundtrack of their lives? We like the sound of that.

The creation of Calgary dad Dan Lemay, the SweetPea3 was designed with safety in mind. It doesn’t come with headphones because not only can they cause hearing loss but they can also prevent kids from hearing what’s going on around them,  including cars approaching and parental edicts. And to further protect delicate hearing it also allows parents to have ultimate control over the volume. Because it’s designed for kids from zero on up – and yup, it is that easy to use – it has no small parts that can break off, no lead anywhere, including in the electronics, and a food-grade rubber coating which absorbs impact.

You can snag one in either blue and violet, and each player has one gig of memory that you can load up with your own songs and stories, but luckily it comes preloaded with tunes and tales from Susie Tallman and Friends and Jim Weiss, which means it’s good to go right out of the box. The SweetPea3 is currently on backorder, which is why we wanted to let you know about it now, because you’ll need to preorder it for any upcoming occasions like birthdays or Christmas.

And hopefully it means they’ll keep their grubby little paws off your iPod…

SweetPea3: www.sweetpeatoyco.com