I really must stop smacking my forehead, a'la Homer Simpson during one of his D'OH! moments, every time I mooch over to parenthacks.com to catch up on the latest ideas from clever parents - at this rate I'm going to end up bruised, if not injured!
I like to think of myself as a 'clever' but the folks over at ParentHacks make me feel STUPID. Seriously, I can work through complex maths equations with my eyes closed, I've got a long list of qualifications to my name and can turn my hand to almost anything and do it well.
But when it comes to ice packs...well, I'd do one of several things:
- Wet a flannel to use straight away and do the same with another one and put it in the fridge to make it super cold
- Grab a bag of frozen peas, which you then have to throw away because you mustn't refreeze defrosted things; or
- Wrap a ton of ice cubes in a tea towel
The problem with all of these methods is they result in the person requiring the ice pack getting wet, to various degrees.
The wrung-out flannel isn't too bad, but it doesn't stay cold for long (hence putting one in the fridge); the bag of peas method always seems like such a waste of peas to me and as for ice cubes in a towel, well - they defrost and the water ends up dripping everywhere.
So how's THIS for a clever parenthack: get a sponge, soak it, put it in a ziplock back, bung it in the freezer.
Ready and waiting for use; reusable - I'd make at least two, one to use whilst the other is refreezing, AND no getting wet.
You can't beat a bit of lateral thinking and I'm left wondering, again, why the idea never occurred to me!
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