Dock those tails: Streamlining adjustable elastic pants

Pants handles [pænts hndls] pl n - the flappy bits of buttonhole elastic that stick out of a skinny kid's waistband when the pants are adequately cinched.

When I was a beanpole kid, I spent about 50% of my waking hours hiking my pants up. The other 50% of the time I was wearing highwaters that fit my minimal girth.

I celebrate the advent of pants with adjustable elastic. The only drawback of these brilliant inventions is the extra 4 to 8 inches of elastic that inevitably emerge from the pants waistband like tiny alien arms that sway giddily with every step.

While daydreaming of ways to batten down the tentacles (without cutting them off), I considered adding a second button on each side. At best it sounded labor intensive. At my present speed of mending, I could probably get all Ranger's size 5 pants adjusted by the time he's wearing size 7s.

Then the clouds parted, trumpets blew, and I saw IT. The no-sew, no-fuss solution.

The elastic anchoring hack is so unbelievably obvious that I consulted with other parents to see if I was the only one who hadn't thought of it.

Hang onto your hats, people. You can start docking those pants tails immediately (and humanely).

1) Adjust waist size normally. Secure elastic to button.

2) Take the tail and fold it back toward the button. Find a buttonhole near the dangling end of the tail (or near the center of the tail if it's really long). Loop that buttonhole over the tail.
3) Happy dance (preferably with music) and congratulate yourself on a job well-done.

***Baby Toolkit is an irregular communique from some geek parents notable for both spleen and silly dancing. We gain no profit (beyond bringing cutting edge obviousness to the Internets) from this discussion of fixing fancy pants for the wee-waisted. Photos: Baby Toolkit (c) 2009, some rights reserved.

Out D*mn'd Spot: Another Great Stain Fighter

I love shopping second-hand with Mimi-n-Moe's Mom. We were at a rummage sale when she commented on how beautifully stain-free a seller's kids' clothes were. This scored us the best find of the day.

The mom uses Dawn dish washing foam to remove stains. If she cannot hand scrub the stain out with Dawn alone she adds a little baking soda "and that takes out most anything."

While I still often use Dial bar soap for a stain-remover, this is one hot tip. Dawn works quickly, and stains take less time to remove. If using a front loader or other high efficiency washer, wash the Dawn out thoroughly before laundering.

I've tried Dawn and baking soda against some stains that went through the dryer and while it lightened the stains considerably it did not fully remove them. I've placed the articles in direct sunlight to see if the remaining stains fade out, but we haven't had many sunny days lately.

***Baby Toolkit is not affiliated with Dawn nor its parent companies. We aren't laundry professionals though we're well on our way to the 10,000 hours required for mastery. Not to brag, but we seem to be naturally gifted in the field of entropy.