Friday, April 6, 2012

Messy IS Fun

A recipe for cornstarch paint has been floating around Pinterest for awhile. I'd thought about trying it, but the weather had never been great enough to go for it. A couple of weeks ago, though, everything fell into place, and I whipped up some cornstarch, water and food coloring and let the girls go to town.

In my mind, I envisioned great splatters and abstract paintings all over our back patio. What I got was this.


There's a small playground in the neighborhood adjacent to us that's designed for 2 to 5-year olds. I took them there to burn off a lot of energy. I expected they would climb and slide and drive the pretend truck. They did do all of that...for about five minutes. The other 40 minutes or so were spent doing this.


I do not mind messiness as long as it can be contained. But my girls bring new meanings to the word. The funny thing, though, they have SO MUCH FUN when they do it. I've gone from cringing about it to full on embracing it. A couple of days ago, when they were getting rowdy, I just let them play with cups and a bucket of water. If I knew of a nearby sandbox, we'd be there in a minute.

So how dirty do you let your kids get? Do you get dirty with them? (Chalk is my limit.)