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The horror! Mom spends 20 hours removing 150 fuzzy toys from her daughter’s hair

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It took 20 hours to remove all the Bunchems toys from six-year-old Abigail Hoelzle's hair. (Photo: Facebook)
It took 20 hours to remove all the Bunchems toys from six-year-old Abigail Hoelzle's hair. (Photo: Facebook)

No matter how much you love your kids, there are times you want to throttle them too – just ask this mom who was faced with a decidedly hairy situation.

Lisa Hoelzle’s six-year-old twins, Noah and Abigail, were playing in the basement of their home in Pennsylvania in the US when Noah decided to dump a bucket of 150 Bunchems – small Velcro-like balls – onto his sister’s head.

“Noah comes running up to tell me that Abigail had something stuck in her hair,” Liza wrote in a Facebook post that’s since gone viral. “Then she came up! I think I had an out-of-body experience.

“We’ve had [Bunchems] for years but the kids rarely play with them. If you google Bunchems and tangled hair you’ll see a ton of posts come up of children this has happened too.”

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Lisa got to work on Abigail’s hair but after three hours had managed to remove only 15 of the balls.

When her husband, Dan, arrived home, he researched ways to remove the toys, but that only made things worse.

“It suggested using conditioner and vegetable oil to loosen them but that made it worse and so messy.

“Dan got out about 10 more. Before you knew it, it was 1am and Abigail couldn’t keep her eyes open,” Lisa says.

The next morning, the determined mom, who refused to cut the toys out because it would’ve stripped her daughter of most of her hair, went to the store to buy mineral oil and a detangling comb.  

“There were also a lot of tears (mine). Abigail consoled both me and Noah because he felt awful what he did. Abigail was surprisingly amazing about it!

“When she started to whine about it my mom brought in a lollipop and stuck it in her mouth,” Lisa said.

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Finally, after 20 hours of detangling and a good shampoo and conditioner, Lisa managed to remove all the balls.

“I feel as if we had a miracle with all of our prayers. We saved her hair and although it’s thinner it wasn’t as damaged and ruined as I thought so thank you, God!

“This will be something we’ll never forget – a traumatic experience in the Hoelzle household.”

Spin Master, the toy company behind Bunchems, told local media that the packaging and directions clearly state, “Caution: keep away from hair. May become entangled.”

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But kids will be kids and tales of misbehaving youngsters are a dime a dozen.

In 2019 nurse Stephanie Plucknette from San Antonio, Texas, took to Instagram to share how her oldest, Tommy (then 5), had given himself and his younger siblings, Eloise (3) and Fred (2), a haircut with an electric razor.

“I’m crying because look, Teddy found the buzz cutter,” she wrote.

In the video Teddy can be seen with the top his head clean-shaven, while Eloise has no hair on the back of her head.

“Alright, it’s just hair and it’s going to grow back,” Stephanie added.

Sources: Facebook, Daily Mail, People, Today

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