A Banjo-tam for Eri!

When I got home from work last night, Emily told me little Eri asked for a Banjo for her birthday. What a request! She will be two on Saturday and a banjo seems a bit of an advanced request for such a little peanut. Then again, she loves the song "Old Susana" and is often commanding me to "go to car and get it" from the CD player, and as noted on the side, Elmo's Country songs features a talking banjo and a real live banjo playing rendition of said classic.

Anyway the idea has been stuck in my head ever since, so during my lunch hour I did some googling to see what I could see, and I learned a smidgen about a variety of banjo like instruments and kids and banjos. My first search was for "banjo for kids" which lead me to this toy banjo which looked just a little too clunky and toy like, and not really that musical. I also came across a Barney Banjo, which thank god is not available anymore. Then I googled for "baby banjo" and that lead me to this page which discusses "backpacking banjos" , "travel banjos" and, bingo, "mandobanjos". Now those look like the right size. But this is for a 2 year old so it's not prudent to spend $579+ for a fine musical instrument. Finally, I came across the amazing "Banjo-tam" on e-bay, and bingo--baby's gettin' a banjo!