Rainy Day Play Date

  I looked out the window to where our two dogs--a Doberman and a Boxer--were playing happily in the sunshine. It gleamed off their fur invitingly, and the heat caused their tongues to loll out to the side. My day was already cram-packed, but the cheery sunbeams reminded me of an idea I've seen often on various and sundry Momma blogs: colored ice cubes in a kiddie pool. I got PUMPED. While the Chicken was down for her afternoon nap, I measured out water in the bottom of a muffin tin. I carefully mixed in colors: red, green, blue, yellow. Then, I gleefully put it in the freezer with high anticipation for the next day's playtime--my little water dog was going to be so thrilled! 

  Unfortunately, when I woke this morning, there were no cheery sunbeams, no bright light glinting off the boys' fur. In the sun's place hung heavy, dreary rain clouds that promised a cool, wet day--not at all the kind of day made for colored ice cubes and splashy kiddie pools. After feeding Madelyn breakfast and playing in the floor with her texture balls and mirror for a while, I put her down for her mid-morning nap and set about coming up with something to entertain my ever-active daughter. 

  So....we had a Pasta Day! I put dry bow-tie pasta in a bowl with an assortment of lids and plastic cookie cutters. (With my own cookie cutter obsession, I have about a billion of those.) I still picked as colorful things as I could find--the only ice color I didn't have anything for was the blue. (So at least I KIND of got my color game. :P ). When she woke up, we migrated to my bed (the house is super cluttered, because we're smack dab in the middle of a remodel), and I presented her with the bowl. 

She was not disappointed.

 At first, just looking in the bowl--and occasionally removing one cookie cutter or lid--was enough for her.

But, then, she learned she could dump it out and make a real "mess" all around her. :)

THAT was the funnest part, naturally. She liked seeing all the colors and pasta around her toes--she wiggled them to watch all the stuff move and was about the cutest thing I've ever seen. (Sidenote: she was never unattended with these slightly bigger than bite-sized portions of pasta. Choking hazard and all that.)

Once that got boring, we played like the bowl was our hat--I put it on, she giggled and pulled it off and hit it a few times for good measure. Then, she cooed and looked at me until I put it back on her head again. After that, we had lunch and then started looking around for more ways to have some fun! We decided on dyed, cooked spaghetti. This is something we've done a few times, and the Chicken totally digs it.

She loves to put it in her mouth--not sure why, since she hates the way it tastes...

She loves to stretch it, to break it, to feel it slime between her fingers. She especially loves to throw it in the floor and watch Momma (or Daddy, if he's home) have to pick it up. (Definitely goes in the trash after that. We have dogs, and that is SO not going back in her mouth..)

All in all, we ended up having a lot of fun on our rainy day date. Of course, story time was included--for the record, if you haven't read The Love Monster, you are so missing out!--and now, we're back down for our afternoon nap. :) Who knows what we can get into when she wakes up?? :)