i don't have wee ones, but i always buy my friend's kids percussion instruments of one sort or another. usually it's one of those smaller remo drums. they actually sound really good. this past week my girlfriend's kid turned 1, and i bought him a lollipop drum and maracas. they're totally too big for him, but what the hey. he can still have fun. i bought him a hat/scarf set as a backup so mom wouldn't freak.

i think it's great to get kids into music at a young age. it help them develop in so many ways.


i secretly want one of those real small kiddie drumsets myself.

My kids (7 and a half yr old twins)  share a love for music like my wife and I do.  We always have music on, especially when they were very little and before they discovered "Barney" and the endless parade of shows after that.  With all that music and the fact that they saw me drumming all the time, my son absconded with a bunch of my sticks and a pad by the time he was a year old.  We bought them some toy percussion and they had a ball with them.  Then we bought my son a little yamaha electronic drum kit thing that has 7 pads on it and a lot of different kit sounds.  I think it's the Yamaha DD 55...   Unforutantely, after my son got my hopes up, he won't let me work with him much!  I didn't start playing until I was about 11 and my dad was a drummer too, so there's still hope that the seed was planted and he'll want to give it a go.    My daughter ended up being more fascinated with piano and has been playing for over 2 years now.  

My niece just turned 1.  She has been shaking and hitting things all her very short life.  Her dad and I are both drummers and she will be too, it seems.

Anyway, I've just finished building her a kit.  I took a 15" marching snare that I had laying around and converted it to a kick drum, an 8" rack tom and I converted a 12" rack tom to a floor tom.  It has 10" hats and a 14" crash/ride.  I had a hard time giving it to her because I wanted it for myself.