Dad freezes his kids' favorite toys to keep them busy while he works

Duncan Gillespie, a 38-year-old father of two from the United Kingdom, found a way to keep his two young sons busy while he works — by freezing their favorite toys.

The family has been self-isolating during the novel coronavirus pandemic, which means Duncan is working from home and the kids are home from school. Duncan’s wife Bex is still attending work at a zero waste food business, which means he’s been watching the kids while working, according to Express.

Duncan placed his children’s favorite toys — a triceratops, shark bath toy, T-rex, dolphin and a plastic lizard — in a tupperware container, filled it with water and freezed the items overnight. He gave 5-year-old Jem and 3-year-old Bram a spoon each to figure out how to get the toys out of the ice.

“I was quite chuffed with myself because I set them up in the garden, came back inside, made myself a bacon sandwich and sat down,” Duncan said.

According to Express, this bought the father some time to get his work done as a researcher while keeping an eye on the boys.

“They loved it. It was quite fun to watch them come up with strategies. As I was out there I could see them saying ‘what happens if we push it down the slide’, ‘what happens if we drop it’. They were trying all sorts of things,” Duncan said. “They’re both very creative boys so it was just kind of fuel for their creativity. I think that’s why they played with it for so long.”

Duncan said it took about 90 minutes to “complete the full rescue” of the frozen toys. The father said he tried the freezing trick again the following day but there was a bit of a learning curve.

“It didn’t last as long because they had already worked out what was the good thing to do and they just went straight to the boots again,” he said.

Watch as Jem and Bram try to free their toys from some hefty-looking ice cubes in the clip above.

If you enjoyed this story, you may also like reading about this dad recording his family’s chaotic moments during quarantine.

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