As a 12-month-old, Hazel has a newfound mobility and insatiable desire to do everything herself, and this includes the obtaining of snacks. One that we always have on hand is teething wafers, which Hazel now prefers to get out of the container herself. This rendered my system of keeping a bunch of little yums in a small tupperware problematic as Hazel would dig the container out and hand it to me to open, expecting to then be able to eat whatever was inside. After a few days of not-at-all-stealthily removing all the wafers except one while trying to find a place to hide the ones I’d removed before handing the container back to her, I had an idea.
I’d noticed that when given a container with a wafer in it, Hazel would happily take the wafer out and put it back in several times before consuming it. She would then continue to play with the container, opening and closing it (or attempting to open and close it) long after she’d eaten the snack. So I needed single serve containers that were small enough that I could easily fit a few of them in my purse.
I began with mini tupperware but soon discovered that the cost and so-easily-lost lids make them impractical. Trying to come up with a better solution as I tidied up the kitchen, I absentmindedly picked up toys to return to the toy basket when I stumbled upon the perfect single serve container toy: a plastic Easter egg. Priced as low as $7.95 for 144 eggs, they are budget friendly while also being fun and colorful. Hazel loves to study them before and after she eats the wafers inside and I don’t mind if, upon arriving home, I find that she’s chucked one out of the stroller into the we’ll-never-see-that-again abyss.
As an added bonus, Hazel now consumes fewer teething wafers because the pieces I put into the eggs are much smaller than what I previously gave her, but each egg-contained-piece keeps her busy for a longer period of time.
Winning.
Cumi Ikeda 