Remember the good old pre-kid days when you could find things that you needed in your house on a regular basis? I’m talking about basic everyday items like: hairbrushes. TV remotes. Scotch tape. Spoons.
Once you become a parent, you become painfully aware of how frequently kids manage to lose anything & everything within the confines of your home.
If you are the parent of the average three-year-old, you will have already spent roughly 217 hours of your life searching for a lost remote control. If you have more than one toddler, you will be at least three months behind on any current cable show, two or more kids means that the remote will never be found.
Kids are genetically engineered to lose stuff. It’s science.
And it’s also annoying as hell; one of the worst feelings in the world is when your child is running late for school, and you’re scrambling to find a hairbrush, because even though you own SIX of them, you can’t find one.damn.brush. And don’t even get me started on finding a hair tie!
But maybe our days of fruitless searching are over. Dad Mike Thiessen has just unlocked parent genius level 1000, because his hack for preventing hair brushes from disappearing is so simple, yet so brilliant.
His Facebook post has already earned over 163K shares from parents who are thrilled with his innovation.
When you're sick of the kids losing the brush everyday.#parenthack
Posted by Mike Thiessen on Tuesday, February 5, 2019
You gotta lock your shit down, people! Lock it all down- anything and everything that kids end up swiping and losing.
Mike apparently had enough of trying to hunt down missing hair brushes just like the rest of us. He drilled a hole into the brush handle and threaded a metal chain through it that was attached to a metal hook in the wall.
His daughter doesn’t look too happy about it, but like most kids, it’s quite possible she lost this very hair brush about sixty times before and complained she “couldn’t find it” because looking for it would require her to, well, LOOK, and if there’s anything kids can’t stand, it’s looking for lost things.
While the chain technique is simple, its application is limitless.
Imagine what we items we could stop having to scramble to find if we only put them on lockdown??
Think about it. You’re wrapping a gift (and if you’re anything like me, you’re rushing, because the party starts in 10 minutes and you live 20 minutes away). You’ve just cut the wrapping paper and you’re all set to fold the corners and to tape them down with scotch- wait- WHERE THE HELL IS THE SCOTCH TAPE?? It’s not in the desk drawer where you left it. Of course not, because that would be logical.
The empty tape roll is under your toddler’s bed, because KIDS.
(And that example was a test- if you’re a veteran parent, you know that you likely wouldn’t have even gotten to the scotch-tape portion of the wrapping process because you wouldn’t be able to find the scissors, because again, KIDS.)
How about library books??
One of my kids loses library books so frequently that I expect alarm bells to go off the minute we step in the door of our local library. Work with us, public libraries. How about start circulating books with a chain-ready hole in the top corner? While this may seen extreme, I can assure you that if you do so, you have a much better chance of actually getting the books back.
Toothbrushes! How about chaining those things down so my kid can’t conveniently claim that her brush is “lost” as an excuse to try & weasel out of brushing?
Or how about chaining the toothpaste to the sink, for that matter? Granted, kids manage to get it all over the sink anyway, but at least the mess wouldn’t spread to the floor, the shower curtain, the bathmat, the hallway…
And of course, locking down TV remotes is essential.
You haven’t known true desperation until you’ve tried to stop Caillou from whining on your TV, only to not be able to find the remote to silence the bald brat. Or maybe you’ve sat down on your couch, only to end up changing the channel with your ass, because a kid managed to jam the remote into some obscure corner of your sectional sofa.
Kids and loose remotes don’t mix!
One key piece of advice: Use a sturdy chain.
My husband actually tried chaining down our TV remote a few years ago. It worked- for a bit. Until the dreaded day that the remote was once again missing… and so was the chain. Both were found under the toddler’s bed (along with the scissors, the scotch tape, and a few library books). Thicken chain, no pain!
Obviously Mike Thiessen’s idea is a winner! Now if only we could permanently chain a toddler’s shoes to their feet, we’d be all set.