The Father of Invention

A friend sent me a link to this article in the New York Times about the increase in involved fathers leading to an increase in new inventions by those fathers. I told another friend about it, and his response was, "Makes sense. If you want to find the most efficient way to do something, give it to the laziest guy to do. And men are a lot lazier than women." True enough. I'm not sure, though, that it's more efficient to invent a nipple for water bottles than to just put the water in a baby bottle in the first place, but I get his point.

So I've been thinking about what inventions I might contribute. I've noticed that the snot sucking booger bulb is a highly ineffective piece of technology; why not something with a little stronger suction? A POWER snot sucker! Great idea! But somebody else already thought of it. I ordered one on eBay ($5 cheaper and free shipping!), so I'll let you know if it's my miracle product.

I've also thought of the toilet-mounted cloth diaper wringer. I wasn't able to find one of those, though, so I've asked Pops, Woodworker Extraordinaire, if he'll help me with that one. If necessary, maybe we can collaborate with Big Brother, World's Greatest Structural Engineer, on the design, though he's currently obsessing on the solution to a hexagonal Rubik's puzzle, so he may be unavailable indefinitely.

Not that we've actually begun using the cloth diapers, though. We should be starting this week. Our supplier had a little trouble with her supplier, so the order was slow in coming, but they're still a bit big for him anyway. We're about to run out of our stock of disposables, though, so we'll be starting on them soon. So I don't really know yet if a wringer will be necessary or helpful, but surely if we're hosing the things out in the toilet and storing them in a dry bucket until they go in the laundry, a wringer would be called for, right? But then I wouldn't expect "toilet-mounted diaper wringer" to be a fruitless Google search. Maybe Pops and I can make a fortune...