Charlie loves to chew. But those water-filled teething rings are too soft (or too hard when they're frozen). And nothing really gets into the back where his molars will be, the spot he likes chewing best. Except maybe teething biscuits, and they don't go through the dishwaser. We even scoured the pet aisle of the local supermarket, looking for the right chew toy. Nothing.
It's a good thing Julie and I love kitchen gadgets. At some outlet somewhere, some time back, we found the mother of all silicone spatulas, the kind of thing you'd use to clean out a 55-gallon drum of shortening or mayonnaise. Then a few months later on of us propped it on a hot stove burner (not even high-temperature silicone is that heat-resistant) and left a big divot right down the middle of the blade. I couldn't throw it out -- who knows when a 55-gallon drum of shortening might come along -- so it sat neglected in the back of our tool crock while we accumulated smaller, hardier spatuli in its place.
Until now. Suddenly it clicked: not too hard, not too soft; big enough not to swallow, small enough to get to the back of charlie's mouth. Long enough to grab while he was chomping. A minute with the kitchen shears and the burned divot was gone -- in the spatula's place are two bright yellow custom-made baby chew toys. He likes them so much that he even sometimes goes to bed with one.
And Julie has asked me if I know anything about silicone molding compounds.