1. Magnetic Harness: Props to my brother-in-law for coming up with this no-hassle timesaver. Like most parents of toddlers and infants, we both feel like no other daily activity sucks the life out of you more than the relentless putting kids in and taking kids out of car seats. I am definitely jealous of my parents’ generation who couldn’t be bothered with this frivolous safety measure, and could have any amount of kids piled in a car with no legal repercussions or parental guilt. During this period, I may have ridden on top of the car holding on to only the rack and rolled out of the car as an infant, but oh the freedom! We can have the best of both worlds with this invention. Instead of losing your mind buckling and unbuckling, loosening, unloosening, getting old food on your fingers, jamming your fingers, fighting your children, pinning them down, arguing about who gets to do the buckle, you just outfit them in the morning in their special magnetic harness and when they get close to the carseat- SHOOOOP- it just locks them in. You can even have magnetic spots in strategic places throughout the house for mealtimes, timeouts, etc. “Did you just hit your brother?!” SHOOOP! “Time for dinner!” SHOOOP! Amazing.
2. Rent-A-12-Year-Old: Tell me if this sounds familiar: Your hard-to-get-to-sleep child has just fallen asleep in the car on the way to get something at the store that you need desperately. You know that if you try to get him out, he will wake up and refuse to go to sleep at any other convenient time. You know that to retrieve and buy your item will probably take tops 5 minutes, but you don’t want to leave your child in the car because calling CPS turns out to be a popular hobby. Who can solve this problem? Rent-A-12-Year-Old. 12-year-olds are the perfect combination of individuals with a lot of time on their hands and just the right amount of capability. You just pick them up on your way to run errands and they sit in the car with your children while you do everything you need the way it is supposed to be done: tantrum and napless-child free. If anyone comes to bother them about being left in the car, they just pass their Certified Rent-A-12-Year-Old card through a crack in the window.
3. Drive-Thru Everything: Question: What is the only thing stopping you from making an amazing healthy and delicious meal for your children? Answer: The potential shenanigans that make a shopping trip seem like a really bad decision. Because invention 1 and 2 are not available yet, here are the steps necessary to make dinner: get everyone out of the house in appropriate clothing, get everyone in the car, drive to the store, get everyone out of the car and through the parking lot, sanitize the cart, shop for your items, resist buying a flashing neon ball, resist buying a big-eyed prostitute-looking doll, try not to forget all of your ingredients while you drag your screaming toddler through the store, go to the ice cream aisle, walk away from the ice cream aisle, return to the ice cream aisle and buy a flavor that you don’t even like, resist buying candy at the register, find your credit card or cash in your catch-all purse, try to maintain normal chit-chat with the clerk, blow your other child’s nose while paying, leave without your groceries, return to get your groceries, get groceries and children into car, drive home. Dinner is supposed to happen after all of this, but mostly everyone is just so glad to have made it home that you end up eating toast and cheese sticks like you would’ve anyway. Here are the steps required for a drive-thru store: call your friendly neighborhood store to order and pay for your ingredients, get everyone in the car, drive up to the store entrance and park, wait for a polite young man to load your groceries, drive away feeling like a million bucks, make a delicious dinner that tastes like a picture on Pinterest looks, humbly accept “Mommy of the Year” award.
4. Miniature Crib Elevator: I’m going to blow your mind with my parent knowledge right now: Babies love to sleep in your arms. And they don’t totally hate sleeping on a flat surface. The real cincher is that they loathe being put there, so the trick is getting them seamlessly from your arms to the flat surface. I don’t care what the sleeping books tell you: the only difference between a sleeping baby and an awake baby is the perfect execution of the physical feat of placing your baby in the crib as if they had just floated there. I’m not one to brag, but I’ve accomplished this a couple of times. After attempting it around 4,000 times. Apart from giving all new parents ninja training, only the Crib Elevator can turn this dismal success rate around.
5. Just One Pair of Baby Socks That Actually Stays On: If you have ever seen socks on a baby, without exception, they are either taped on or they have been put on in the last 10 minutes. All I’m asking for is one pair.
Mom It Out 