Pre children, I used to relish the opportunity to go into our local ELC when it was coming up to a small child’s birthday and be drawn in by the brightly coloured and inspiring craft displays..playdoh, pva glue, glitter…what is not to love…?!
Feeling smug and satisfied I would make the desired educational based crafting purchase in the confident knowledge I would be loved and appreciated by said small child’s parent for being such an incredibly thoughtful present giver…I was always slightly confused by the pained look that crossed their brow on receipt of said gift and wandered why my thanks were uttered through such gritted teeth…it did not take me long in my own parenting journey to fully appreciate the reason…
Paint: For Esme’s first birthday we got her all the ‘must have’ equipment recommended for encouraging the next Monet, plastic mats to cover the floor, aprons to cover the child, pots, brushes, all the bright coloured, definitely washable paint one budding artist could wish for, along with a lovely, natural wood, slightly more expensive than the cheap plastic alternative, easel. ( I was still in those naive early days where you purchase all the aesthetically pleasing traditional wooden toys that are so wholesome and tasteful looking, yet binned off by ALL children in favour of garish, cheap plastic crap that lasts 5 mins and takes over ALL of your house despite the best attempts at shoving them all out of sight in the ever increasing IKEA storage boxes! ) So, suitably armed, a couple of days after her birthday I spent a good half an hour carefully preparing the kitchen and the child, lining up all the lovely different paints in the pots, getting the water pot ready for her to carefully rinse her brush in between colours, and donning her in her smart little apron! I then spent the next 10 mins trying to get her to pose looking angelic and artistic holding her brush for the obligatory photo that would be uploaded onto social media later when I would write my affectionate post informing all the people in my life of the wonderful and nurturing experience we had, because, who wouldn’t want to read about that?! I then gave her the go ahead to explore her creative and imaginative self and paint on the carefully prepared paper up on the easel! 5 minutes is the amount of time it took her to cover the paper, easel, mat, floor, her face, her hands, her shoes and the kitchen cupboards with the dingy brown colour that she’d created by mixing all the colours together before abandoning the paint brush on the floor, removing her apron and running in her paint covered shoes out of the room to go and find her next activity. 45 minutes is the time it took me to clean up and 4 years is the time that passed before I got the paints out again…..
Playdoh: Where to start? I stopped having playdoh in the house years ago yet still find it everywhere! Stuck to carpets, in the treads of our shoes and my personal favourite, dried up, mouldy and hard shoved into something that was once of use such as a medicine syringe or a plug socket! I used to think there was nothing better than a lovely fresh set of playdoh and enjoyed making umpteen snails and dice (admittedly my repertoire was a little limited!) with the girls, but inevitably after the first use, like the paint, the playdoh would end all mixed together in a big brown ball, shoved into as many pots as I could still find the lids for, knowing the tubs that weren’t sufficiently sealed, would end up mouldy by the next day! Similarly to painting, I’d spend a good 20 mins setting it all up and covering all my surfaces, only to capture the interest of the girls for approximately 5 mins, I would often realise that I’d been sitting in my kitchen happily making multiple snails on my own for a good period of time after my children had wandered off….I do still like to buy it tho! For the children of other friends who may have not yet had the pleasure…its so brightly coloured and imaginative after all….!
PVA GLUE: Ooohhh…who decided that this was a useful item to have in a children’s crafting box? Something that sticks seemingly anything to anything?! Apart from of course the bit they want to stick as their little fingers get stuck before they’ve had chance to do the sticking?! Its giving me palpitations just writing this! I counted 4 half full bottles of the stuff in my drawer the other day, all now rendered useless as they have all dried up because of the useless faffing lids they put on them! Give me a Pritt stick or sellotape any day!
Glitter: I have resigned myself to the fact that there probably won’t be another day in my life where I won’t see a solitary spec of glitter somewhere about my house or my person. It gets EVERYWHERE! There is clearly NO WAY of controlling the stuff. You only need to open the lid and your fingers are covered, which then, even if wiped immediately, will inevitably contaminate EVERYTHING you touch for the next week. But my goodness it is loved by ALL children! I am a firm believer it was in fact a child that invented it as the ultimate pay back for all adults. I also secretly suspect that you can gauge how much or little your child’s teacher likes you based purely on the amount of PVA glue and glitter on their amazing picture that they made at school ‘just for you Mummy’! Yes, I know that smug smile thankyou Mrs. Smith….
All of the above, in my household, are now usually reserved for school as we wouldn’t want the novelty to wear off now would we?! I feel school get their revenge in the earlier mentioned pictures and random junk models that are the size of a small house….
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It's a mums life. 