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The dummy thief

Image: via Shutterstock

Remember The Borrowers? The children’s book about tiny people who live secretly in the walls and floors of a house and "borrow" from the big people in order to survive: They’re real. It’s a known fact that having a baby in the house means that things are going to disappear.

That all sounds quite cute until you endure the search for a missing dummy yourself. After one hour of broken sleep and a baby who has been crying all night. Or the relentless ticking of the clock when you need to be somewhere and a sock or shoe has gone missing. Or, once you’re actually out, the hunt for a dropped knitted hat or the bottle containing the last precious drops of expressed milk.

It’s almost easy to see how an exhausted parent could suspect invisible people of stealing the important baby goodies. No matter how much you pin those gloves to the sleeves, or how tightly you fasten the silly shoes- you know- the ones with the pointless treads on the bottom- one will go missing. Silently.

Some parents try and pretend that there aren’t tiny thieves out there, but they’re just deceiving themselves. And wasting a lot of time double checking to tumble dryer for a sock match, or underneath the driver’s seat in the car for that bottle cap.
Another more plausible argument is that baby goods manufacturers use ultra-biodegradable materials that simply dissolve into thin air after an expiry date has been reached. Poof. Gone.

Eventually, you do learn to live with it- after all, a few bucks spent replacing a dummy or a pair of tiny socks isn’t the end of the world. Until your baby grows up, and the school uniform fairies start their mischief, that is...

Have you ever lost a baby product which seemed to vanish into thin air?

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