Painting and Play Dough

Painting and Play Dough...two things that I absolutely hate as a parent, but my kids love it!  Seriously why must these two activities be desired by my two babies?  These are two activities that literally make me cringe when they ask to do them.  I always hope that they ask to do these things closer to dinner time so I can get through the activity with a glass of wine or a beer.  Judge me friends, that is fine, but seriously these two things drive me batty!

Play dough is actually a great activity for kids to use their imagination and also in studies it has proven to allow children to work out their aggression.  However, in my household the activity of play dough results in that substance being stuck to my floor, a child's butt, my foot, and somehow it gets on the cat...every time!  This event also results in fighting over a tool that goes along with the play dough.  We have fifty million tools to use to cut and design, but for some reason they both want the yellow knife.  Really...what is wrong with the blue one or even if I get you a butter knife from the drawer?  There is always a knock down, drag out fight about something by the time play dough time has ended!  Getting out aggression my ass, I think it brings out aggression for my children.

Now on to painting.  My children feel that with painting the more paint the better.  I will admit I only allow for them to use water color paints at this point in the house.  We had that color wonder stuff, but that costs an arm and a leg so we only did that once until it ran out.  Don't worry though my kids are not neglected from reaching their inner artist self with painting.  Audrey paints at preschool, and both kids get to paint at Mud Pies, which is a great place for them to do a lot of arts and craft activities and I don't even have to plan them:)

Maybe I am the fun police with these two activities, but I feel that I clean up sixty million messes daily, why would I encourage another mess that I will have to clean?  Don't get me wrong, I understand with kids there comes messes, I mean a lot of messes, and I foster their creativity but these activities are limited for my sanity.  Just the other day the kids got out play dough, even after we asked the kids not too, and we finally gave in to the idea, and sure enough I was cleaning the floor and my foot from the little pieces that escaped the creativity and cursing under my breath.

With that being said, don't think my house is a sterile environment where no fun happens.  Currently my kids are cooking in their kitchen and dumping every piece of play food on the floor that we own.  They are making meals for me and their stuffed animals, and they are happy.  I am perfect with leaving the play dough and painting to the other folks, and just embracing the chaotic mess we have on a daily basis.