If a maglight and MacGyver had a baby in my craft room while watching Toy Story 3…
Let me explain…
No, there is too much. Let me sum up.
Your kid takes a teddy bear to bed. Mine takes a flashlight. And yes, she cuddles up with it. Yeah, she’s weird. Really.
Only, the other night, while having a fit, Vista threw her flashlight across the room and broke it.
Now we could have taken the ‘too bad, so sad, sucks to be you for breaking your flashlight’ route. But I prefer to stay sane. So of course we went out and bought her a new flashlight.
And, of course, we couldn’t find the same pretty pink princess flashlight, so she picked out a Buzz Lightyear one instead. (great…my kid as a thing for space cadets)
Anyway… The new flashlight? Blindingly bright. Which is great if you’re looking for something in the damp dark recesses of a crawl space. Not so great if you’re handing it to a 3 year old who hasn’t quite grasped the concept of not shining the bright things in her eyes. What? She’s cute. Back off.
So we did what any parents would do. Tried to crazy glue something onto the top of the flashlight so it wasn’t so bright.
This? Did not work. At all. I may have gotten really high on the fumes produced by the attempt, though.
So, in true MacGyver fashion, we turned to the next best thing. Duct tape. Only…. we couldn’t find any in the house. We think it ran away with the roll of electrical tape that’s also missing.
After some scrambling, we tracked down a roll of packing tape, decided it would do.
Fifteen minutes of digging through all my craft scraps produced some fabric we decided would work just fine as a dimming agent.
So voila, a dim, but still functional flashlight, that would do MacGyver proud.
Now all I have to do is trim it with some pretty pink ribbon so it’ll be a Princess Buzz Lightyear flashlight, as decreed by her highness, Queen V.
Very cool! Ya do what ya gotta do and you did good!
I think that’s freaking brilliant.
You’re like MacGyver and Martha Stewart rolled into one. That is one awesome flashlight!
Jenn Reply:
November 8th, 2010 at 2:33 pm
@DrLori71,
I think that’s the best compliment I’ve gotten all year.
Now that is some good creative parent magic right there!!
GENIUS! stinkin genius.
Jenn Reply:
November 8th, 2010 at 2:34 pm
@nic @mybottlesup,
No, ‘stinkin’ genius is when you duct tape your diaper to your kid so they can’t get it off
Haha, that’s adorable.
My kid sleeps with an extra binky in her hand. Not a teddy bear kinda girl, either.
Am astounded by your brilliance.
I probably would have taken the “too bad/so sad” route and then kicked myself for the meltdowns & sleepless nights I had to endure, most likely only to end up caving in anyway. When the new flashlight ended up being blindingly bright, I probably would have just had a nervous breakdown.
=P