Dads Compete to Stack Cheerios on Babies' Heads Because ...Dads
Posted: Jun 20, 2016 10:56 AM CDT | Updated: Jun 20, 2016 11:01 AM CDT
(CNN)So, about a week or so ago, Patrick Quinn felt trapped.
He was sitting on the couch, afraid to move -- lest he woke up Maxton, his 3-week-old son who was sound asleep on his lap.
Then he spotted a bowl of Cheerios by the couch. His older son had left it there because he never puts anything away.
Hmm, thought Quinn, let's see if I can get one to balance on Maxton's nose. It worked.
Hmm, let me see if I can get two.
"I'd take a picture but then I'd start laughing and it'd topple over," Quinn told CNN. "So I'd start again, take a picture and it'd topple over. The highest I got to is five."
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how the Cheerio Challenge was born.
What started as a bored Orange County father's silly way to pass time has become a social game of one-upmanship as dads compete to stack higher and higher towers of Cheerios on their sleeping children.
Quinn manages the social accounts for Life of Dad, a parenting site with pretty impressive traffic numbers. So he knows a thing or two about what's likely to get traction.
About four years ago, Life of Dad posted a mashup of fathers from all walks of life singing "Part of Your World" from Disney's "The Little Mermaid." That got about a half a million views.
There were dads who balanced upwards of 20.
Dads who went for multiple stacks. Or made a Cheerios pyramid.