When fellow Mountain Mummy & AMAZING multi-tasking friend of mine, Jojo, told me last summer she had a new product in development to help make lives easier for active families in the Mountains – I was most curious. Anything that makes my life easier catches my attention! Let me put this in perspective, Jojo at this point had three children under 4 and was still working part-time in the family run restaurant! She now has a fourth en route! Anyone with one or two children under 4 never mind 3 can relate to this I’m sure! Yet, somehow she still found time to create and develop this new concept…
Sooo she revealed the concept of the GOTCHAKids Vest. As the name says it’s basically an activity vest that you pop over your child’s ski outfit with a reinforced strap on the back so you can help them on and off things such as chairlifts, buses etc. or help them up when they fall over… I was already sold. The vest also has a few other rather fabulous functions such as loops to attach cords to keep control of them whilst learning to ski, a system on the back enabling you to strap their skis to their back and a transparent contact details pocket! I was most excited this February to receive my very own proto type to test out!
The vests have been developed to appeal to children and of course to maintain maximum visibility from a safety point with bright colors and fun features. They have even created two little cartoon characters to promote them – Seb & Tilly. The vest we tested was bright yellow with a cute butterfly on the back strap. Thye do have another version with an equally cute dinosaur design. I decided to test it out on my youngest who has just turned 2, is very energetic and is starting to want to ski but isn’t quite ready! She was delighted and wore the vest with pride – in fact we had difficulty taking it off her at the end of the day! The vest is light and went easily over the ski outfit.
From the outset we got stuck in, lifting our little muchkin on and off the cable car and out onto the slopes. She seemed to quite enjoy being transported. My Mountain man husband even did a few swings in it to test it to the max – to which our munchkin screamed with delight requesting “encore, encore!!” So it passed the comfort test.
I then attempted skiing with said child with the vest. In all fairness skiing is a big word as my mountain munchkin isn’t quite ready for skiing and was quite happy to stay nestled between my legs and let me lift her onto the magic carpet to do “encore, encore”. But it certianly saved my back. She thinks she can ski of course! We did end up doing the baby run several times and found the vest incredibly useful. It also attracted lots of attention, fellow parents questioned me on the slopes and a few instructors even examined it and asked me where they could get them. Th
Test number 2 was ice skating. The vest was brilliant for ice skating with our mountain munchkin. It was perfect for keeping hold of her and grabbing her when she fell over. The manager of the ice skating rink too was very curious and wanted to know more about it…
The vest has since been taken snow shoeing too and passed the test too, prooving to be equally handy.
What can I say! I think its brilliant and wish I had one of these when I was already teaching her older sister how to ski.
The vest is due to be officially launched next month, but you can already have further information on their Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/gotchakidsgear or their website:http://www.gotcha-kids.com/
Check them out!
