A Few Ideas We Have Found Useful

Over the years, we have learned a few tricks that have made life more pleas­ant for all of us.

• After a long day at the beach, the best way to get the sand off your kid’s legs is to let it dry, then wipe gently with a knit cot­ton gym sock.
  
  
• Have you ever con­sid­ered what a small child must do in a fast-food place just to get a sip of root beer?

  Sitting at a table that prac­tically comes up to their chin, they must manip­ulate a wet slip­pery cup, which is usu­ally so large as to require both hands, off the top of the table, and down between them and the table almost to their lap.  Then they must get the straw, which is long enough to fit a Super-Jumbo size cup and stic­king up through the mid­dle of the lid, into their mouth.  When sat­is­fied, they must reverse the pro­ced­ure to put the cup back on the table.

  All that, with little exper­i­ence, dis­trac­tions all around, and no spill­ing, please. 

  Our solu­tion was to, with their per­mis­sion, cut the straw so that only about ¾ of an inch was above the lid of the cup.  They usu­ally agreed, but once in a while wanted to see if they could get by with­out it.
  
  

• Helium-filled balloons are lots of fun, as long as they don’t blow away.  Some places now tie small weights to the end of the string to anchor them in place.  The other alter­na­tive is to make a loop in the string to tie them to the owner’s wrist.  Here’s the knot that worked best for us.  There’s prob­ably a name for it, but I call it a bal­loon knot.  It’s like a slip knot, but with an extra wrap on the half hitch to make it easier to slip open.
  
  Form large loop C, and bring end A around the string to form loop B.  Push end A through loop B two or three times, then tighten loop B around the string.  The result­ing knot can slide along the string, adjust­ing the size of loop C.
  
  Actual quote from one of my cou­sins to her father, as she watched her toy bal­loon get away: “Daddy!  Get a lad­der!  Quick!”
  
  
• This one is a clas­sic: to divide one piece of food between two child­ren, have the older one divide it, and give the younger one first choice between the pieces.
  
  
• Found elsewhere on the Internet: To make an Eas­ter egg hunt less compet­i­tive and fairer for the younger ones, hide an equal number of eggs of each color, and assign each child a color.  They can only pick up the eggs that are their spe­cific color.  The children ended up help­ing each other find the last few miss­ing eggs.  Such a great twist on an old activ­ity!