On putting your child on a leash

When I was a kid, on the rare occasion my mom took all 5 of us anywhere she would pull out "The Leash"

It was a long telephone cord-ish rope that had little handcuffs spaced every few feet.  We had to walk in tandem and try not to run into other people or each other. For 5 unruly kids this was never easy. Or possible. There were many instances of us getting hopelessly tangled up together and a few successful escape attempts by my little brother. I don't know how he weaseled out of those handcuffs but he certainly was good at it. This is the same brother that managed to drive the car on two separate occasions while sneaking away from our parents all before the age of 5. Both occasions resulted in accidents- once a streetlight and once another car in a parking lot.  If any kid ever needed a good leash, that one did.

Well, they have certainly come a long way since the mid-80's, and as Lola hasn't exhibited any tendencies towards running away or operating motor vehicles as of yet, we're happy to go with the fuzzier, friendlier version of the child leash these days.

She absolutely LOVES her stuffed giraffe harness backpack. She insists on buckling it herself and packing the little pouch, with important things like sidewalk chalk and megablocks.

The tail has a little loop at the end so I can just keep it around my wrist as we walk along. There are a myriad of them on the market with all sorts of different animals, but the giraffe is the most cost effective and since we share a house with another family, with another 2 year old, I had to buy two. What makes the giraffe the cheap one? Poor lonely giraffes.

So there you go. I put my kid on a leash. I highly recommend it. 


*unpaid product review- however if you buy one from my link I get a cut!