Edible finger paint

In my perpetual quest of finding things to do, I came across this super intimidating I-am-clearly-a-terrible-mom-because-I-don’t-do-this-many-things-with-my-kids list. http://www.playcreateexplore.com/p/activites-for-ages-1-3.html. Thad does quite a few projects, but we almost always do them during Thatcher’s nap time, so I feel like he gets left out a lot. This one was easy enough, required very little set up, and entertained long enough to at least let me get lunch cleaned up. On the website, the lady made her paints, put them in containers and gifted them. I mixed food coloring with yogurt and dumped it on Thatcher’s high chair tray. I’m classy like that.

He got the hang of it right away. Definitely worth making the ‘paint’ out of food, because sticking his fingers in his mouth happened about 2 seconds into it. Most finger paints are ‘non-toxic’, but that’s not the same thing as saying, ‘please eat this by the handful’…

At some point he decided he had had enough with finger-painting and decided to go straight to face-painting

Thaddeus was simultaneously finger painting. Which for him means smearing the paint into one giant brown blob.

This project did require a bath of course. I often underestimate the amount of cleaning that something like this will require. I had to strip Thatcher down naked (at which time he decided he really needed to pee), and carried them both to the tub, one hanging from each arm. Fortunately, the middle of the day bath allowed me to redress Thatcher into this ridiculous get-up.

Nothing says ‘cool dude’ like head to toe stripes. Also, don’t let me fool you. We are not doing stuff like this every day. I often cannot handle this foolishness, it all depends on my emotional state of mind. Some days we can handle projects, some days all we can handle is a mid-day movie. You do what you can.

In yet another of my pre-children delusional dreams, I pictured my kids producing beautiful artwork that I would frame and hang up. I have yet to see anything of that caliber out of Thad. I mean really, what I am I going to do with this? Yikes.