Finally! Entertainment That's Hallucenegenic Free

Often I find myself unaccountably locked away in the Tower of Mommy Guilt. It's much like the Tower of London with it's 15ft thick walls and surrounding moat (how I became a prisoner here is a mystery to me, but the Warders are nasty SOBs). Anyway! In an effort to escape I am trying to do more stuff! with my kids. This must be easy and cheap stuff!, and I thought there might be one or two cell mates in here with me. So, I'll share my weekly projects with you, and maybe we can tie them together like bed sheets and lower ourselves to the ground. Or if you're one of those moms that has no guilt, you can still use these ideas even though I hate you and you suck.

Erupting Colors

Materials
1 or 2 shallow bowls, or a cake pan
milk (not skim)
food coloring
liquid dish soap

Cover the bottom of the bowl or pan with milk. Drop a few drops of food coloring on the milk. Add 1 drop of dish soap in the middle of the food coloring. The drop of soap will act like a little boat, sailing along, dispersing the color, and your children will think that is SO COOL.  When the little soap boat stops, you can alternately add more drops of color or soap, and watch the colors swirling swirling round. Do NOT give your children LSD before this activity, because it will FREAK THEM OUT. Did I say that out loud?

*Sigh* back to the tower.

Comments

[Ang]

My kids most favoritest thing to do. We take all the chairs away from the kitchen table. Cover it with blankets to make a fort and eat lunch under it or read books with a flashlight. They are all about forts.

Or if you are really insane you can do anything with paper mache. It is the messiest mess that you will ever have but it is a ton of fun.
http://www.dltk-holidays.com/winter/papermache_snowman.htm

[Tiger]

I guess I need to send both of ya'll my new book: 100 Highly Destructive Projects Involving Kids, Cats, and Jes' a Few Sticks of Dynamite. j/k, 'course.

[Karyn]

I'm not a mom but I used to work at a great daycare center and I had a mom with lots of tricks to keep us busy (and out of her hair :P)

One of my favorites:
Glop
Mix equal parts (I think)cornstarch and water and a few drops of food coloring in a 9X13 pan or something else with sides and some room to play in. It gets weird and slimy and gloppy and kids love it. It's really messy but worth it for the fun. I'm not sure of the amounts but you can just experiment to find the consistency that you like best!

[suzanna danna]

This all sounds like loads of fun to me Sheryl... as a matter of fact... I know exactly what the Mister and I are going to be doing when I get home from work tonight.

You could also try (because of the square inch of toast post before this one) having them make "Ants on a log". It's cheap, easy and fun for kids... and pretty darn nutritionally sound. My mother used to let us make it and we wouldn't be found in a diabetic coma from sugar twenty minutes later.

Celery sticks...
Peanut butter...
Raisins... Crasins... grapes or any other type of ant looking thing that your kids will actually eat.

Let them put the peanut butter inside the celery sticks and march the ants (raisins) onto the "log" and make up a story. Then we got to act like monsters while we ate the logs with the ants on them. RRRRaaaWWWWrrrr!

My mother was a kindergarten teacher.

ps... your page will never remember me, why?

[bluepoppy]

I have nothing funny to say but wanted to tell you I thought this was an extremely funny post---how very dull of me. I must be having a Puritan moment. You know, like a senior moment but with big silver buckles on my shoes.

[Kris]

But can I take some LSD? Why didn't I think of this in college?

I will try this, but knowing my kids I will end up with milk all over the place and the dining room will smell sour for the next year. I HATE when my tower smells bad! But I'm feeling the guilt (and facing an ice storm tomorrow) so I will try it. Thanks!

[samantha]

Let me just say this: you are a great mom!

*tossing you the keys to the tower*

And this does sound like fun. I'll wait for the Green Bean Kid to grow up a bit, and then we shall have MORE FUN with this handy activity.

[song]

look I'm delurking. better late than never right. I've done that fort thing - sometimes it's the only way my monster will eat lunch. but milk.... hrm, I'm so going to take a heap of illegal substances and try it myself first...

Happy Thursday

[Ryan Elizabeth]

Oh you are a brave one! At my house that would be dumped on the floor within half a second! Right now my son is suppose to be coloring, NOOOO he is sitting on the floor running his cars through the dumped mess of crayons.

[sarcastic journalist]

http://pbskids.org/zoom/activities/do/

this is a kids show on pbs that for some stupid reason, i watch. it has a lot of activities on the site.

[Very Mom]

I'm over here in cell D. And I'm so glad because I wouldn't want to suck or have you hate me.

This is such a cool idea, though I'm afraid of trying it because then when I'm doing laundry (haha) Jake will dump the milk out onto the floor and climb up to get the food coloring and I will have a mess of royal proportions.

But! I'm totally trying it anyway because I'm kind of dumb like that.

[Jennifer]

We did this as a 5th grade science experiment. It's supposed to prove that soap makes water "thinner" and that's how it cleans. I dunno, I thought it was cool.

[Phil]

Here's another way cool drug-free high--though it's going to cost you some bread.

At Natural Wonders, Zany Brainy and such places they have a nine inch disc with a black and white spiral printed on one side. At the very center of the disc is a pimple that keeps the disc about two millimeters above the surface of the table and makes it possible to spin the disc freely.

I can sit and watch that darn thing spin for hours. I can tune out the sounds of dogs throwing up and the shrieks of siblicide. And if your kids have any autistic tendencies--it's probably better than an erector set for entertainment value.

One downside...when used as a Frisbee the Turn-On, Tune-In, Drop-Out Disc is lethal.

[Ginny]

I once kept my 2 1/2 year old busy for almost 20 minutes with a box of baking soda and a bottle of vinegar. Dump a little baking soda in a big bowl, add vinegar, watch it foam, repeat. I paid 30 cents for the baking soda and 50 cents for the vinegar, so that's some cheap entertainment.