Slimer

Trying to be an Awesome Mom while we were under the weather but before the plague struck full-force I wheeled the kids through Wal-Mart (just wait, I'm not to the Awesome Mom part). We picked up clear glue and liquid starch - the only ingredients you need to make slime! My kids love to make things and to get messy and they love snot and this should be basically the same consistency... SURE to be a hit. tottreasuresnorthbay.blogspot.com assured me it would be, see her little chica playing in rainbow-colored slime like a dream come true?

So let's begin. We dumped the starch in first.  I later came to believe this was our fatal mistake. Then we added glue, and the kids chose orange for their slime color (I wasn't about to go all gung-ho on an entire rainbow). Personally, I would have picked green, but hey, you can't win 'em all. Apparently this wasn't one I could win MOST of, even.

Ethan hung out in his bumbo and chewed on a bag of small paintbrushes. This worked out great... until he got hungry, and it didn't, but that plays into the story later.

First, the slime was definitely two textures, which I believe was the result of adding glue to starch, instead of starch to glue. It took a long time for the glue to drizzle in, and as it drizzled it stayed in a rope-y texture, the starch binding around it so it didn't stick to itself. That made leftover starch, so it was firm glue ropes in a watery starch goo.

We also mixed it with a spoon first, which didn't really merge the two ingredients - you definitely need to get in there and knead it with your fingers. Patrick was excited there were only 2 ingredients; he was already feeling yucky that morning so he declared, "If I feel like I'm going to throw up I'll run over to the trash can and not throw up in this bowl because throw-up is not one of the ingredients." Is throw-up EVER an ingredient? To anything? I hope not.

Second, the orange color plus the tough ropey texture made it EXACTLY like pumpkin guts. That's all I could think the entire time.

The more the kids played with it the more solidified it got, which was good for the ropey-ness but bad for the playing because the glue melded together in a tough way, like making resilient rubber balls. Orange rubber balls covered in leftover starch goo.  See, rubber ball in her right hand, starch goo in the bowl.

Of course as the kids are playing, making the best of it, Ethan started freaking out and desperately needed to be put down for a nap, so I ordered to kids to NOT make a mess or get anything on the floor. They hadn't budged since we started, so I figured I was pretty safe. NOT SO. Never so, really. As I was nursing Ethan in his room upstairs I heard feet pitter-pattering to the basement, so I yelled and demanded that they stop whatever it was they were doing. Eli burst out crying that Patrick and Caroline had gotten toys (they were pitter pattering down to the toy bins) and so why couldn't HE have HIS electronic toy dragon, too? Oh, crap, they have now gotten electronic toys to play in the goo? Dollar dinos, sure, but since I didn't know what they had, I demanded (from the top of the stairs) that they lay down all toys and not leave the table until I get down there. All this yelling was accomplished with Ethan attached to my boob, which is why I didn't even make it down the stairs to investigate further. I finally got Ethan down for his nap, and my return to the kitchen involved stepping over several gobs of orange glue goop - not a good sign and I SERIOUSLY hoped there were no gobs on the carpet! (There weren't). The kids were dutifully back in their seats but were then discontent with the slime adventure because I had banned toys and they all declared they were done playing. For good measure, Patrick threw in "this wasn't as fun as I thought it was going to be." Rub it in, Patrick, rub it in.