99.9 times out of ten (I know my math is a tad flawed) I don’t always have two free hands to hold my kids two little hands. There are many times in the day when the moment calls for me to hold my kids hands; when stepping into the subway, crossing a busy street, but we live in the city so in-reality “many moments” mostly means all moments. There are also many times in the day when the same moment leaves me with only one free hand, sometimes no free hands but usually I can wiggle at least one free when I’m stuck. Does this happen to you?
My bag of choice is already a backpack, and the reason is pretty much to make the whole two hands free thing, more of a possibility. But still, sometimes one hand is all I got and I have two little kids hands to hold — so the math just doesn’t work.
So we developed this system/game, called “sandwich hands“. It’s basically exactly what you see, a sandwich of hands — I just call out “sandwich hands!” when I need two hands but only have one of my own to give. It’s only good for short distances (crossing the street, getting into subways, making your way through a small but dense crowd, etc) and it often results in some kiddo bickering (but really what doesn’t?) mostly about who get’s to be the cheese or the bread.
The next time you only have one free hand to hold (or maybe you have two free hands but need to hold 4 little hands?) try “sandwich hands”. PS. I went on a field trip with Harlow’s class the other day and sandwich hands, also worked like a charm with the kiddos I was taking care of.
plus also. How To Make It Through The Day When You’ve Had Zero Sleep + Big City Living, Even If You Don’t Live In A Big City