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The MacGyver Parent: How We Learned to Always Be Prepared

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My daughter Elle is approaching her 2nd birthday and is full of energy. She absolutely loves to play outside and explore. Since my husband and I work from home, we’ll tag team watching her, while the other works. After reading books, playing with puzzles, eating snacks, and watching an occasional Sprout program, she soon starts pointing at the door, saying “Out!”

One recent afternoon, my husband put Elle in her favorite push car to take her around the block. While strolling with her down the sidewalk, Elle would point in the direction she wanted to go, taking him down one block, and then another. He soon realized she was taking him to the public park, about five blocks from our house. Since it was a beautiful day, he figured, why not?

The park was full of kids playing and Elle immediately wanted to play on the jungle gym. Needless to say, the Arizona sun is no joke, and hubs had left the house for a short walk – not an afternoon out. Her sippy cup meanwhile sat in the fridge, and little Elle was working up a sweat. He saw a group of kids playing in the club house and noticed they had containers full of mini water bottles. Politely, he asked if they could spare one and they were kind enough to oblige. With a wipe of his brow, Elle was playing again, hydrated and happy as a clam.

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She went down the slide, jumping in excitement, running and laughing, but soon, another unexpected hurdle: a familiar, stinky smell. Cautiously, he checked her diaper and his fears were confirmed. His quick trip around the block meant he’d left without the diaper bag. Uh oh. No spare diapers and no spare wipes. I’ll leave the messy details to your imagination, but cleaning this was going to be no small feat.

He looked through Elle’s push car, searching under the hood and discovering only toys and a small pack of wipes, tiny, tiny wipes and definitely not enough to clean out the apocalyptic nightmare in the back of Elle’s diaper. He asked a parent relaxing on a park bench and was able to gather enough tissues and napkins to clean Elle.

But — she was still without a diaper. And wanting to keep Elle’s modesty sans pants, my husband did what any loving, MacGyvering parent would do: he took off his socks and fashioned a crudely homemade diaper, wrapping and tying them together around her, until he got her back to the house for a proper change.

My reaction when I saw his solution had me in stitches. Elle was smiling — sock diaper? Totally normal, nothing weird going on here. He grinned back proudly, “I MacGyver’d a diaper.”

So, what’s the moral of the story? You might not always be 100 percent prepared for all the baby or toddler situations you’ll face, but you’ll surprise yourself when your parental instincts kick in and you find a way to solve any problem. Elle had fun and my husband learned a thing or two about fashion design. And now, we know to always take our diaper bag, even on the shortest of trips!

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The post The MacGyver Parent: How We Learned to Always Be Prepared appeared first on Baby Bullet Blog.


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