Rainy Days

It has rained all day long for the past two days. On Thursday I told dh "This is going to be one of those days where they can watch all the TV and movies they want." Then he comes back with, "C'mom, you are supposed to do art projects and have a picnic inside and all sorts of other fun things." Gee, thanks for the guilt. Not only am I a lazy mommy, I'm an uncreative mommy at that. Let's see him do a few of those things!

I sorta met him halfway. I pulled out the dreaded "p" activity . . . playdough. They played playdough while I cleaned the rest of the house--makes sense, doesn't it? I put a vinyl tablecloth down on the dining room floor and then their picnic table on top of that and they made cookies for Santa for about 58 minutes. I have pictures of the aftermath, but I don't have them uploaded yet.

Watching them play with playdough is difficult. Not because the tiny pieces get drug everywhere--I'm sure we'll find playdough smushed into the carpet somewhere. No, its because its hard for me to watch them mix the colors (take deep breaths, it will be fine). I just have this thing about putting things back the way they were. Once you give them 6 different colors of playdough, there ain't no getting them back into the tubs in their virgin state. Why does that matter? It doesn't--to them. For me it is an exercise to help overcome some small bit of OCD that I have.

One way I handle it is to buy the mini tubs of playdough on clearance after holidays. The package I pulled out had been sitting in my cupboard since about December 27th. I figured each container cost me about 10 cents, so if they ruin it I'm not out much. Now we have 19 more pristine containers to bring out at other times throughout the year.

A little word about playdough: I prefer the homemade stuff. I used to make it every week when I was working (what a hard job, huh? play with playdough everyday). I was a pro. I could make any color of the rainbow. I added sprinkles to make it sparkly. I added things to make it smell good like cinnamon or cocoa. I was the Playdough Queen. Now I have been reduced to giving my kids the store bought stuff. Where did I go wrong?

As I was planning this post, it was going to include pictures of our playdough fun and the recipe for homemade playdough for good mommies to make. That will all have to come in the playdough addendum.

And for the picnic? The girls did eat lunch (and supper and breakfast the following day) at their picnic table. They also spent all day on Friday in their pj's. Gotta love rainy days!