Play-doh. Mud piles. Paint. Glue, construction paper and scissors.
How many of you just shuddered or immediately thought “NO WAY, NOT IN MY HOUSE”?
It’s messy, I’ll give you that. There’s always stuff to clean up. Clothes can get stained. You’ll find traces of it in random places with no clue how it got there!
Well, I’m here to stand up and speak out in favor of all things messy!
I have three little girls ages 7, 6 and 3. They are all girly girls! Princess costumes, fairy wings, LOL dolls, doll houses, ballet tutus. If it’s pink, purple or light blue and glitters – we have it. However, these girls like to get dirty! And I’m in favor of it!
Some of my favorite childhood memories are rolling out “snakes” with play-doh and spelling out my name. My husband has fond memories of playing in the mud. I’m a crafter and still get excited when glue and markers and paper is involved. Not to mention all of the claims that show how beneficial these activities are for children.
So, in defense of all things messy, here a few of my survival tips!
- Set the scene. When working with Play-doh in our home, it’s only allowed in the kitchen because we have hard floors. The nice thing about this is play-doh gets hard when it dries. And hard chunks of playdoh on a hard floor sweeps right up! So I let them play all they want, put away the play sets and leftover playdoh and then just sweep up whatever fell on the floor. Play-doh will keep them busy for hours, creating and pretending and having fun. Clean up is maybe 10 minutes. If you don’t have a hard floor, get one of those cheap plastic table covers with the felt backing. Spread that on the floor and let the kids work on that. Pick it up and let all the extra slide into the trash!
- Be prepared. I have long given up on hopes my children will play with multiple colors of play-doh and manage to keep them separated. When I see sales I buy a few extra packs and stash them away. When I notice that all they have left is basically grey from all the colors completely smashed together, I break out a new pack. This also makes me a hero in their eyes and I’m totally cool with that!
- Get washable. When it comes to paint, buy the washable! It’s going to get everywhere regardless of how much newspaper you lay down. Besides who really has newspaper these days? Kids washable paint is amazing. Clothes come clean and tables are able to be wiped right up. If your kids love markers as much as mine do, get washable! No fear their creativity will wind up on the wall with no way to get it off. Just wipe it off with a wet cloth!
- Save stained clothes. Kids will stain their clothes no matter how hard we try to avoid that. Set these aside and use them for outside clothes or painting clothes. It’s less stressful when you’re not worried about their clothes. I’m all about one less thing to worry about.
- Have the shower ready. After a good painting session or a really good muddy piles adventure – they are going to need hosed down! And sometimes that’s part of the fun!
What kind of messy fun do your kids like to get into?
What hacks do you have for surviving it?
