Worth the Space: 5 Summer Buys for Your Fam
The items you'd text another parent unprompted
Summer is nearly upon us and if you’re a parent, you might be feeling a combination of excitement and dread for 3 months of less structure, shifting schedules, more family time and intermittent vacations – or, as my mom used to say, "not a vacation, but a family trip.”
Maybe you’ve got nothing booked, the calendar’s wide open, and you’d like a few small upgrades that give those unstructured weeks a little juhjzing. Either camp – literal or figurative – this list works.
This is Worth the Space – the running short list of things that survive contact with real children. Each one has to work for the kid and also work for you. And it had to be the kind of thing you’d text another parent unprompted, mid-trip, while they’re packing for theirs.
And with that, the summer five:
1. Rumpl Original Puffy Blanket
A puffy blanket built like a puffer jacket – synthetic fill, water-resistant shell, packs into its own stuff sack. The real pitch, if your cardinal fear is ticks like mine: a layer between you and the grass. Is it scientifically tick-proof? Cannot say. Have I been bitten while sitting on one? Also no. Picnics, soccer games, the outdoor concert lawn, the lake. Lives in the trunk all summer.
2. Hydro Flask Carry Out Soft Cooler, 20L
A soft cooler that holds ~38 cans, keeps things cold for ~24 hours, and weighs less than the comparable Yeti. I’ve schlepped both and the Hydro Flask wins. Fits the rosé and the grapes; the kids find their string cheese; you find your seltzer; everyone is, briefly, satisfied.
A carry-on that doubles as a ride-on, which is to say, your kid sits on top while you wheel them through the terminal. Solo travel with kids is a logistical event, and this turns the worst stretch (gate-to-gate, post-snack-meltdown, pre-boarding) into a victory lap. There are presumably engineers worrying about edge cases involving small children on rolling luggage and I will leave that to them.
4. Yoto Mini
If you already own the regular Yoto, this is the travel version – smaller, lighter, same library of audiobooks and music. If you don’t own the regular Yoto, start here and skip the upgrade conversation entirely. It’s the rare device that doesn’t stare back at your child with a screen. You hand them a card; they listen to a story; you drink your coffee like a person. The Mini lives in the carry-on now.
Magnetic, self-sealing water balloons that close themselves when you let go. Every elder millennial knows the original sequence: hose, balloon, panic as it gets too big, splashy detonation that soaks the wrong person. These are the upgrade – reusable, no rubber confetti in the lawn, dunk-fill the whole batch in a bucket in under a minute. Works at the pool, in the yard, at the cul-de-sac block party etc etc etc. The closest thing to free, repeatable summer joy.
Worth the Space runs every few weeks. Five things, picked because they earned it, sponsored by no one. Everything on the list has survived contact with real children, which is a more rigorous standard than it sounds.
Got something earning its keep this summer? Reply.