Let your kids be kids...or let yourself remember how to be one.

Let me make one thing perfectly clear, you will never read about me claiming my house is clean. Cluttered chaos. The only place clean enough for inspections is where I cook, for obvious reasons. In my humble opinion: A child stifled in their mothers obsession of cleanliness promotes psychotic behaviours...or stifles their creativity-however you want to smoke it.

While some parents have this abnormal ability (to me) to be comfortable enough to slap on some outdoor clothes and head out the door for many adventures with their toddlers, or even a few kids. The difference from me? I have 3 all at the age of three. When I leave the house it is for a purpose and if I go visiting I kinda like to not be stressed out. I need 6 extra hands most days.

This year is much better, as they follow directions a lot better then any year before...but it is still not an easy, stress-free, fast feat.

So I have found many ways to amuse the kids inside, when it is too foggy, wet, cold to take them outside in the backyard...most of these ways involve mess. So, people with O.C.D, cleaning fetishes etc, move away from the site...back away from the blog.

I think most of the activities we do with the kids is to see if I can out-do the mess of the last, also, to see if I can give the grandmothers strokes. Not my mother though, she's even worse then I am when it comes to messy activities.

Since before the kids first birthday's I have allowed them freedom of their own personal space. Ex: stewed blueberries. While it provided them with a healthy meal chock full of anti-oxidants, while it peeled off the first layer of babyhood to expose their inner creativity, I didn't think things through.

Stewed blueberries cause staining of furniture, clothing and mostly the skin. My kids looked fairly greenish for a few days...but really a few days of staining it worth a million words in pics...doncha think?

Our next ventures with creativity is finger paints. You can buy non-toxic, safe varieties cheaply at the store...or be right crunchy with yourself and make them: http://www.creativekidsathome.com/activities/activity_42.html

I have never tried a recipe for it, as my mother gave us huge bottles a long time ago and it seems to last forever, though as soon as we run out I'm giving it a go!

With finger paints start off slow. A few squirts on their feeding tray of the high chair, creep up to the next step with paper...if you are lucky enough not to have vinyl flooring tape down large sheets of paper or newspaper...strip the children to its diapers and let them go at it!! This is my favorite!


My way of thinking is that if you have to wash the floor...if you have to bathe the  kids, you might as well make it worth  the effort!

Our latest messy art project is nothing new to some early childhood educators...shaving cream!! My kids have these little tables and I squirted foam all over it. They spent close to an hour driving dinkie cars through it, drawing pictures in it and just plain having fun...rumour has it I took part in some of the mess as well.

We also play with glue, glitter, pompoms, pipe cleaners, oobleck, gunk...maybe to expand their creativity, maybe to give myself a few minutes break from the fighting, whining and crying...but I'll never tell...

Some might think this is a waste of time, but when I watched my just 2 year old daughter back then pick up a magna-doodle and draw a very realistic face (including eyes, nose, mouth, arms, legs, ears and a boob all in the correct place)...I kinda feel "How can it be wrong?"

So people let your freak flag fly...strip your kids off, put on old clothes and let kids be kids...make a mess. If people come in and don't like the state of your house tell them "The door is thatta way...the broom is thatta way...take your pick".