These days, you can claim temporary ownership of just about anything: DVDs, cars, furniture, and even designer handbags. Commitment-phobes that we are, most of us will jump at the chance of a one-night stand with the newest object of our desires, knowing we can take it back the second that lovely luster starts to wear off.

And as any parent who's stubbed a toe in his child's junkyard of Matchbox cars knows, kids are an especially fickle bunch. So we wonder why it took so long for someone to invent the new rental service that could be a godsend for frustrated parents everywhere: a rent-a-toy company.

The new web-based company, Baby Plays, was invented by a Houston mother, Lori Pope. When her twin boys' toys started taking over all the floor space in her house, she realized that maybe she didn't need to buy quite so many, especially since they seemed to lose interest in each toy in a matter of minutes. She realized she really needed a service where she could borrow one toy at a time and then send it back when her boys were done with it. When she couldn't find anything like it, she decided to create her own.

Pope, who formerly owned an oilfield supply company, poured $250,000 of her own money into Baby Plays, purchasing all the best toys she could find for children ages 0 to 5. Under her rental plan, customers can rent 6 preassembled toys each month for $35.99 – less than the cost of most new toys in her inventory. Generally, families will keep each toy for a one-month period, which is plenty of time for most kids to get tired of playing with it – though if they get really attached to a particular toy, they can hold onto it as long as they want in lieu of a new one, much like Netflix's DVD rental system.

Babies and toddlers aren't known for keeping their toys in perfect condition, but Pope doesn't mind a little wear-and-tear: "If it has a little scratch on it, we're not going to take it out of the program," she told The Dallas Morning News. But even if the kids don't care how the toys look, the parents do, so "we're not going to ever send anybody anything that they're going to feel like is junk."

If only we could say the same for Netflix. (Word to the wise: Stay away from Boogeyman.)