Our Days Indoors

Fortunately, we seem to be finished with hand-foot-and-mouth-disease. We're glad of that, because we were getting a little stir-crazy, cooped up inside. We'd read books, colored, done puzzles. . . we'd done everything! So we decided to mix up some fun and made playdough.

If you've not made your own playdough, I highly recommend it. It's inexpensive, it's easy, and you know exactly what your toddler is putting in her mouth, if she's inclined to taste her toys . . .(Not that that ever happens around here.) Even better, the salt in the recipe makes the surreptitious tasting a little less appealing! If you need a recipe for playdough, here's the one we use:

3 cups flour
1.5 cups salt
3 Tbsp oil
2 Tbsp cream of tartar
3 cups water ( If you're making colored playdough, add food coloring to the water. Make it really, really bold, because once you add it to the other ingredients the color becomes a lot lighter. Pink playdough is easy. Red playdough, not so much.)

Combine all ingredients in a large pot over low heat. Stir continuously until no longer sticky. (Really, just keep stirring. It'll come together, but it takes a while. Stop stirring and it might burn. Ick!) Store in an air-tight container.

Kathleen requested purple playdough. Even though it looks grey here, it's purple. Sort of. I think I need to go back for some sort of color tutorial! Playing with playdough kept Kathleen occupied for some time. Her favorite toy -- my old garlic press. At least someone's using it!

Madeline didn't get to play with the playdough, but she was hard at work, too. She's more and more chatty. She's babbling and squealing all the time, making her own little running commentary on our circus. I think when she actually speaks, she's going to have a lot to say! Also, as I've mentioned before, she hasn't quite worked out the whole crawling thing. She's got all the component parts -- she can sit herself up, she rocks back and forth on all fours, she moves from a sit as though she's going to crawl, she scoots around on her bottom or on her tummy, mostly backwards. And out of nowhere the other day, she managed this:

(I do have a cover for that outlet, but I'd just finished vaccuuming in there, which is why it's off. Just so you know!) Anyway, I've been saying this for weeks now, but I think this girl will be on the move any day now!