What a wonderful time we all had at Christmas this year! Princess Toddler loved every minute of it. Presents, other kids, strawberries, turkey and family all rolled into one fun package. What better combination than that? It was also exciting watching Princess Toddler enjoy her presents marginally more than the wrapping paper and boxes this year.
Her favourite gift from Mum and Dad was a barrel full of play-doh and play-doh accessories. Barrel being complete with cookie cutters, scissors, rolling pin and other fun things to squish play-doh through. I was pretty happy that this was her pick of the toys, particularly as I chose the present and also because I love squishing play-doh myself from time to time.
All was great. Princess Toddler had a great time playing with her new gift on Christmas Day, and Boxing Day, and the day after Boxing Day and . then it all turned horribly horrible!
The play-doh has now been brought out, played with, squished, rolled, cut up, flattened, pounded, mashed, poked, cleaned up and packed away at least five thousand times. Okay, maybe five thousand is a slight exaggeration but it sure feels that way. Dont get me wrong I was happy to bring it out, set it up and let my daughter go for it as often as she liked. But, ahhhhh, its now driving me insane.
Let me go back a little. Princess Toddler and I loved making and playing with her homemade play-doh. Clever me thought she was now ready to have some more sophisticated play-doh tools at her disposal. After all, she had discovered that squishing little people onto it made great impressions in the play-doh. Not to mention the joy she got out of making play-doh worms.
Little did I know that the play-doh tools are that bit too difficult for her to master on her own yet. Only Mum can cut with the cookie cutters, squish play-doh to make worms, roll the play-doh out with the rolling pin and chop it with the knife. Little did I also know that she would want to play with it at least four times per day. Worst of all, little did I know that bought play-doh crumbles into a million tiny pieces. I am constantly wiping up pieces of play-doh and getting tiny bits stuck on the bottom of my shoes, and her shoes, and Dads shoes.
So today I made the brutal but necessary decision. The barrel of play-doh will disappear, Princess Toddler and I will make a batch of homemade play-doh together and she can play with that until her hearts content. No more mess, no more help, help and no more taking two hours just to get ready in the morning in between wiping up and playing with store bought play-doh.